Thoughts on "The Storytelling Animal"

As I read through the beginning of The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall, I could not help but think about my own life. Just like the children that Gottschall describes, I grew up creating stories out of anything and everything. My friends and I would pretend that we were spies and we would run around outside trying to beat the "bad guys." We would play a game we called "Town" where everyone would create a home out of couch cushions or whatever was around the house, and then we would ascribe to ourselves an occupation -- doctor, policeman, banker, etc. Then we would play out various scenarios in this world that we created.

Gottschall states that as we grow up, we may move out of "Neverland" but we don't stop crafting stories; we just do it in different ways. I'm studying film at U of M. I'm going to school to learn how to use the visual medium of film to tell stories. I've also done a lot of creative writing, and I would argue that I used writing as an outlet to replace playacting with friends.

Photo Credit by Angie Garrett, CC

I also find it very interesting that the enigma of storytelling has no easy answers. Why do we tell stories, if there's no real reason for it? How has storytelling prevailed throughout the ages? Gottschall offers several possible suggestions but it's crazy to me that we just don't know, even though we all accept storytelling as a natural part of our daily lives. And it really is inescapable.

Some News! (finally)

I can't believe I'm actually writing here right now! But I have some news! This semester, I finally got into SAC 310 - Screenwriting, and I'm planning on using this as an opportunity to do a really thorough revision of the DJ movie script. I'm counting on this class giving me a lot of insight into how I can make my script better, and hopefully finished enough to start going ahead into pre-production.

I know it's an ambitious goal, and there's a lot that stands in the way from this movie getting made, especially since I'm only 20 years old, I don't have a ton of experience, and I also lack the resources currently to get the film made, but I'm confident in my ability to make it happen. In the meantime, I'm planning on gaining more experience by working on projects here on campus for the Screen Arts classes, maybe working on a production or two if they are in town over the next year. And I'm also in the process of working towards me getting access to some major equipment and, hopefully, a crew.

I'm excited at the prospect of all this, but it will be slow going. I'll try to post here more regularly now that I have screenwriting every week in order to provide updates as to how the script is coming along. And, of course, any bigger news will also be here too.

A Quick Update

It's been awhile, but tonight is the night I finished marking up my script for revisions. I'm waiting to hear from my friend Emma to get her revisions, and then the next step is to make the revisions on the computer. Hopefully I will work on that in the next week or so, and have a second draft completed soon!

The second draft will most likely be the draft I submit to the screenwriting contest, since the submission date is in just a few weeks and a third draft likely wouldn't be ready in time. I'm anticipating the major rewriting taking place here for the second draft, and any additional drafts will include more minor changes rather than major story adjustments.

And once the second (maybe third) draft is completed, then I can start working on other preproduction paperwork. I'd like to complete as much of the preproduction process as possible before submitting the application to the honors program. Of course, my acceptance hinges on me increasing my GPA to 3.5 in time, and I still have time, so I'll be working on that too. But in the meantime, I'm going to assume that I will be eligible and continue working on this film as though it will be made during my senior year.

So that's the update, that's what's new. Sorry about the huge amount of time in between this post and the last one, there just wasn't a lot to report. Revisions for the script took a lot longer than I planned, but hopefully the next few steps will go a little faster.

That's all for now, and I'll report back soon!

Revising Has Begun!

Well, last night I cracked open the script to start revising. I grabbed my red pen and took to the page. Granted, I only edited the first two pages, but still, it's progress!

I finally feel like it's been a long enough time away from the script that I can return to it with a fresh perspective. The problem now, of course, is finding the motivation to revise. It's not like scribbling on the page with the pen is very difficult work, but I still find it's hard to pick it up and start working.

It should be very easy, because at this stage, mostly what I'm doing is pointing out stuff that doesn't work, rather than offering suggestions on how to fix it. When I go to make the edits in Final Draft, that's when I will actually do the fixing. But for now, I'm merely circling issues, pointing out mistakes, things like that. A rough cut to the rough draft.

Hopefully I will be averaging more than 2 pages a day, or else this will take a while. I just have to get back into the swing of things.

First Draft Read-Through

Last night I returned to the first draft of my script, after a week away from it. I didn't start revising it yet; all I did was read through it once. When I finished the read-through, I wrote down a couple notes that I had and left it alone.

See, I still don't think it's been long enough for me to return to it. It's been a week but I still feel familiar with the characters, situations, and dialogue that it would be difficult for me to remain objective about my work. Hopefully by the time I return to Ann Arbor after Spring Break I will be ready to start revising, and I'm assuming that within the week or two following that I will have completed the second draft.

The second draft will be the one that I start letting other people read. I feel confident already that the script does not need a major overhaul, and that the second draft will be pretty close to the draft I use to look for investors for the project, which is the next step.

Once the script is completed I'm going to put together a information packet about the film. In it I'll include my resume, the script, a treatment, a budget, and possibly a few other items. These packets I will then pass out to people who may be interested in helping fund this project. I also plan on using Kickstarter.com to help raise funds.

If I'm lucky, the project will be in pre-production by this time next year, with production happening possibly as soon as Fall 2013. If this were to happen I would spend the summer of 2013 in post-production, and finishing the project shortly after. Of course, this is all hypothetical and it's a long ways away, but I figure that helping to visualize the end result will help me reach it.

I'll talk to you soon!

Nothing to Do But Wait

This is the hardest part. Now that the script is done, I know I have to wait around two weeks before returning to it. I've read multiple screenwriting books that heavily suggest to take a break from the script. Their argument, and it's a good one, is that the time off gives you a chance to forget details from the script as well as become less consumed with it, allowing you to see the film as a whole as well as approach the script from a new perspective. The time off gives the writer a chance to be more objective about the script he wrote.

The problem is, I'm so excited to keep working on the script, to get a second draft finished, that this waiting around is driving me crazy. I keep picking up the script that I printed out, tempted to start revising through it, then I force myself to set it down and not open it up.

In the meantime, there are a number of things I can still do that are semi-related. For instance, and maybe most importantly, I still do not have a title for this movie. And that's a problem. Titles are the hardest thing for me to come up with, and I struggle time and again to come up with a good enough title. And usually, I fail (I mean, come one, "The Test," and "Dumb Luck" are not exactly brilliant titles). I've been writing down words associated with the script that may be incorporated into a title, but as of now nothing has jumped out at me.

Other than the title, there are only a few small things that I could work on, so again, this is tough. Another temptation of mine is to hand the script out to everyone I know so that they can read it and give me feedback for revision. The problem here is that this is still my first draft, and I know that it is not as good as it can be. Maybe the first draft isn't ready for people to read yet. I don't know, I keep going back and forth on this one.

According to the timetable, this means that I won't be starting on the second draft until I come back to school after Spring Break next week. This seems like a ways away to me, and we'll see if I can go that long...

DJ Movie Progress Report

Well, the first draft of the DJ movie is officially complete! It clocks in at 100 pages exactly. Act 1 is about 26 pages, Act 2 is about 54, and Act 3 is about 20. It still needs a lot of work and I'll be revising it for the next few weeks, but I'm just excited that I got it done (and ahead of schedule, too! The screenwriting class hasn't even finished writing the first act yet!).

I know that there will be a lot of revising going on, and I knew that going on. See, one of the issues I have is finishing things I start. So I set about writing to get to the end, making sure all the important plot pieces were in place, and focusing less on the littler things. Now that it's done, it's much less of a commitment to revise, plus I get help.

So the plan from here is to take a couple days off from the script so that when I go back to look at it the material seems fresh to me. That will give me a better perspective on what needs to be revised. In the meantime, I plan to ask a couple close friends to read it and give constructive criticism on what they feel needs to be revised. I've read that you shouldn't let people read your first draft, but I feel that collaboration is really important, and that people can bring new insight and a new perspective to the table.

I'll take their suggestions and my own suggestions and set about revising the script. I imagine that it will get a little longer as I revise it, but at the same time the scenes themselves will get more concise. One the second draft is done I'll let other people read it to give their feedback, and hopefully the script will be a little more coherent at that point.

So bam! See, even though I haven't been updating this blog recently I've been working hard on this script, and I'm really excited to see where the project goes from here. Stay tuned for more updates!

And for those who say, "Pics or it didn't happen..."

Far From the Cynics in This Town playlist

I've been working on this playlist for months now. When it all started it was because of Brand New Colony, the Postal Service song. I wanted to kind of build a playlist around that. Slowly I started adding songs, and then removing them, then adding others and removing them. A lucky song would be allowed to stay on the playlist every now and then. But I had trouble finding songs that said exactly what I wanted the playlist as a whole to say, and I really wanted to get it exactly right.

I really hope this is exactly right. I feel happy with the playlist, but I just hope everyone else will get it, will see what I was trying to do with it. For those of you who listen to it, I hope you at least enjoy it!

Far From the Cynics in This Town from kmof1992 on 8tracks.