Done With Summer, Far From Finished

I’m sad to see this time period in my life end. What this means is returning to school for my final semester. It means really having to sink or swim with working out my future. It means reminding myself that I’m still a student who has a plethora of responsibilities that will dominate my time and energy.

Yet that only makes me happy I took this time to relax and explore my craft. It was probably the most laid back summer I’ve had in a long time. I knew it would be that way too; this was my last chance to be a kid, I suppose. Once I graduate, the safety net is gone. It’ll be time to really search hard not only for work in the film industry, but to really show off my work to places other than the insubstantial nooks of social media.

I’m talking about the REAL world.

Let’s review though. About 3 months ago I started my general routine. Get up in the morning, go for a run, then write a few hours a day. Everything that happened besides that–working on an unpredictable schedule for a summer job, beach trips, dates, random run-ins with people I knew from High School–was all unexpected, at times pleasant, other times tedious. I won’t go into the details of any of that, but let’s leave it at the fact that life tends to throw things at us no matter where we go or how tuned out we think we are from the outside world.

Above it all, I did what I had set out to do. I completed a screenplay, and I’m very proud I did. I proved to myself that I could do it. I created something, and it’s mine. No one can ever take that away from me.

The act of writing, of creating something, regardless of tone or material, has always been blissful from me. It’s what has always been a part of me. It puts in me “in my zone,” and it saddens me how much I shied away from it up until now. Between everything I will need to accomplish in the coming months, the most important thing to do is fight like hell to sustain this part of me, no matter what.

Just because I enjoy it doesn’t always make it easy. Coming up with a new idea has proven to be difficult. I want to write another script, but I need an idea, a conflict, something that I can find compelling and worth telling as a story. Like a pendulum, I swing from high optimism to confused melancholy and sometimes rage. Right now I’m somewhere in the middle. I’ll keep digging for that story though. Persistence, persistence, persistence. I’ve given up so many things in the past, but not this time.

The next time I post on this blog, I’ll be in my room in State College, getting myself together before my school schedule takes over my life and my sanity. I’ll relish these final days at home and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Here are some cool films before I forget:

Whiplash: This one hit a little close to home ; I had wanted to be a drummer myself back in the day. The energy in the film is infectious, and behind all of the music, there’s a deep message about greatness and the price that comes with it. J.K. Simmons’ performance is nothing short of legendary.

The Breakup: Watched this one strictly as an exercise in studying pacing and scene placement (chronology wise). Learned a lot, but I didn’t find the film that entertaining or funny. Jen Aniston still nailed it in any case.

The Wrestler: Darren Aronofsky has quite a knack for eccentric professionals (“Black Swan,” “Pi,” even “Noah”), and he shows off that knack once again again with an old and seasoned wrestler constantly dealing with his past glories. I love the cinematography in this one, as if The Ram is perpetually approaching the ring for another match.

Tootsie: A simple premise but a strong social satire. Are men and women really that different once you get to the bottom of it all? On a side note, it helps that the “Rain Man” is short enough to pretend he’s a woman anyway.

The Theory of Everything: I love films that manage to explain science in a simplistic and sexy way. Like films such as “A Beautiful Mind,” the real story lies in the people and their specific ticks. It’s a heartfelt story of love, faith, and perserverance that shines by the committed performances of Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. This one will haunt you.

Kid Cannibis: Based on a true story. Imagine “The Wolf of Wall Street” with marijuana smugglers instead of stock brokers, and replace Leonardo DiCaprio with this guy, and you have a general idea of what this one’s about. Killer soundtrack too.

Juno: Pregnant with Detail

Finished reading the screenplay for “Juno” a second time today. “The Godfather” took me a week to read, given its density. I read “Juno” in less than a day. I was addicted to it, for there was such a vibrant, straightforward plot involved, with such unique characterization throughout. I know that is pretty broad, but I am still in the “holy shit” phase that comes with reading something you have sincerely enjoyed.

I would almost call something like this the antithesis of an epic such as “The Godfather.” I have seen “Juno” in the past – a 90 minute suburban drama about teen pregnancy – but it has been quite a few years, maybe even before I saw “The Godfather,” so I did not have a complete picture of the film in my mind. I can tell though that the script aligns with the film much more in this case. The form of the script I have is also for more commercialized, as if you could buy it at a supermarket. Even the subtitle says, “the shooting script.”

Here’s my attempt at a logline for “Juno:” A smart aleck, vulnerable teenage girl is impregnated by her best friend. Nothing about the adoption process here, or the story about Vanessa and Mark – our “B plot” if you will – but that will come around. The second time I read the script, I tried as hard as I could to decipher it. What this meant was going scene by scene, looking for parallels in the narrative. My favorite one is when Juno is struggling through the crowds of her high school in the beginning, but as she becomes very pregnant, the students “part the waters” for her. You know, like Moses. There’s another allusion to that story too, as Juno references the story of Moses’ mother leaving him in a basket. How far you can take the allusion from there was beyond me. If anything, it’s a hell of a joke.

The rest of the screenplay is riddled with quirks like this, I think that is what sticks with me: not the entire plot, but the nuances that flesh out these characters and create connections that would otherwise not be there. Those details all have to shine through and ways no log line ever could present.

As I work on more log lines, I recognize that I don’t have to have the entire plot in my head. The log lines should be able to take me anywhere my creative insanity wants to. I stress about the originality of my ideas, which often slows me down. In an introduction to the script, courtesy of Diablo Cody – the mad genius herself – she declares, “don’t ever agonize about the hordes of other writers who are ostensibly your competition. No one is capable of doing what you do. No one else can ever be you.” The sentences have more staying power than anything I read in “Save the Cat,” at least in my head. I have not heard of anything else that Cody is done since “Juno,” though I doubt she has stopped working. Her debut work though is her primary and quintessential gift to us, to me. I need to re-watch the film now, to see it with brand-new eyes and a script in my head. Maybe I’ll read it again. Someday. There are other scripts I need to read as well though.