This new draft, which has taken just over a year to complete, feels different.
I started writing it after I completed the short film script Ella with Dan Gitsham, which was in 2010. I wrote the first two pages, which was essentially a wishfullfillment piece... I have always wanted to take a run and jump off a building and fly. It was this idea that allowed me to move away from the despressing nature of what Powerless was always about... what if Superman was a coward. But rather than take it down that dark path of depression and woe is me, I wanted to flip it. What if I had superpowers, wanted to use them, but didn't know how or what the repocussions would be. If I had powers, I would probably be doing exactly what I am doing now, writing a blog about a script I have finished about a guy who has powers. I don't think I would use them. Fear. I think I would be scared shitless to use them, because, as is the case with me... I wouldn't know what the outcome of me using them would be. Unless I can see the whole story planned ahead, I tend to not make a move, I tend to over think and procrastinate until the moment passes. Not a coward, just a realist, a pessimist and a procrastinator.
So yeah, wrote those pages. Sometimes when I complete a project/script, especially if its an intense experience like Ella was, I wanna just drown myself in tv or film or books or computer games, but after Ella I was kinda buzzed, so got to work. But the filming of Ella happened and I got swallowed up with feature film ideas for Ella.
I didn't want to rush the script of Powerless. I wanted it to be a showcase for what I can do as a writer. I wanted to show what my interests were, what I knew and what I love. I wanted to have fun with it and allow it to flow at the right speed. Admittedly I should have finished it a few months back, but Max Payne 3 came out and work got pretty heavy. So I let it play out. Spent a lot of time rewriting the first few pages, stripping it back, over writing it, under writing, trying to get the mood and feel just right so you could feel the emotion, so you could essentially feel the insides of the shoes my main character is wearing. I also wanted to write a lot of personal shit into it. Not personal feelings exactly, although they do figure into it (of course they do), but some actual moments from history. I wanted to give it texture, make it feel real to me without it feeling dull and a bore to write. Because if I find it boring to write, then you are gonna find it boring to read. But then I seemed to get it right. It seemed to flow. At least until I stumbled over the villian. I wanted a villian.
As I have said before somewhere on this blog, that I wanted to write a comic book show. i wanted to do what Heroes failed at doing. I love comics. I read shit loads every month. I sell them everyday. Not an hour goes by that I am not in some sort of comic book conversation with someone. So, yeah, its my passion. And they say write what you know. So, yeah comics.
But every comic hero needs a villian. So I stumbled a little. Ran through cliche and stereotype,until I came to what I've got now. Hopefully not cliche or stereotypical, but recognisable.
The beautiful thing that came out of this was not knowing what to do with him as a villian. I wanted it real and I wanted it to compliment the hero. A hero who doesn't want to be one. What if you are a villian and there are no heroes? How can you be a villian? Can you be a villian?
So, this fed back into my main character and really helped give the script some meat. But it didn't have a canvas. And then I saw Aaron Sorkin's Newsroom. It's awesome. Pretty much anything he writes is awesome. And what he is doing is pretty obvious and has been done before, but something hit me. Give it some historic background, give it a canvas that fits, that matters and that had some affect on me.
The London Riots.
The script runs takes place in august of 2011. It's fucking crazy. It's fucking scary. It's fucking terrifying and feeds into the mentality of my main character perfectly.
So yeah. It's done. I feel weird about it. Mainly because I have an ending. An ending that had been mutating in my head for the last two months. I had about six of them and then one morning they all got stuck together and fucked and had a mutant baby ending that I wrote yesterday. I like it. It has something to say (at least I hope). It's grim and its real and its hopeful and it's wacky and it's definitive but wide open.
I feel weird cos its done and cos i like it. And worried because I like it and its done. I think its done. I feel its done. Its out of my head but always there, playing out. But its playing out completely now. It has a theme that runs through and I think and hope that it ends and plays out with satisfaction. I feel satisfied.
The end.
I wanna write something else now...
NO LIFE....
The Dark Knight Rises... It's been over a week since I saw this. Still not sure about it. I liked it. But didn;t love it. It's good, but not great. It's the weakest of the Nolan bat films. It's the weakest of Nolan's films. It doesn't live up to it's own promise, let alone the promise at the end of The Dark Knight. The promise at the end of Batman Begins was delivered and then some in TDK, but TDKR drops the ball. The script is a great read, the film is great fun. But... ahh shit I don't know. Gonna see it again next week and in IMAX at the end of August.
Newsroom... It's great. I love it.
The Twelve... the epic sequel to The Passage is brilliant. Bigger, darker, weirder. It's very cool.
The Age of Miracles... one of the best books you'll read this year.
Hans Zimmer... his work on TDKR is amazing. Helped the end of Powerless.
Lynch on bluray... AWESOME!
The Grey... Loved this film an awful lot.
ELLA WATCH
Upcoming Screenings
MINNEAPOLIS UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL 2012
17-19 AUGUST, Minneapolis, USA
Screening on the 18th August in 'Freaky Times'
TIFF presents FULL MOON HORROR & FANTASY FESTIVAL 2012
16-19 AUGUST, Biertan, Romania
17-19 AUGUST, Minneapolis, USA
Screening on the 18th August in 'Freaky Times'
TIFF presents FULL MOON HORROR & FANTASY FESTIVAL 2012
16-19 AUGUST, Biertan, Romania
Namaste...
