3 Pages Yesterday!!!

I'm excited to report that I got another 3 pages yestarday, bringing the page-count of Episode 1 up to 10!!!

AND, I'm still on schedule!

Tonight was a night of bad filmmaking.

First, Brian and I watched Uwe Boll's latest bowel movement ALONE IN THE DARK. If the guy didn't make movies based on popular videogames (he's the genius that gave us HOUSE OF THE DEAD, and even cut away from his movie to SCENES FROM THE ACTUAL VIDEOGAME!!! Otherwise, you wouldn't even know that the two are related to each other.) his movies wouldn't make a cent!

Although, I have to say that this movie at least LOOKS like a sci-fi horror film. HOTD looked merely like a film-school thesis project. (Good solid C: Boll is daring in his attempts to revolutionalize the medium, but his choices are often erratic and distracting, and he had no sense of story or the importance of emotionally involving the audience in the film. That's if it were a student effort. Professionally, send this guy to McKee and don't let him behind a camera again until McKee say's it's okay! And make Boll pay the tuition!!!)

Boll's detrimental failure is that he doesn't realize that the audience has to care about what's going on before we can be excited or frightened by it. He seems to think that the emotions pring from the images themselves, rather than being hard-won by the writer and the actors. In AITD Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorf were acting their asses off for him, but I still didn't compelled. It was just all happening in front of me, Not once did I jump or feel tense or feel ANYTHING realted to the story. It's like the worst of the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise in that the story is simply a succession of "...and then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens...".

But Uwe Boll is not the worst filmmaker making movies today.

It is highly possible that Timothy Hines is. I bought a 3-hour dvd calling itself "H. G. Welles' War of the Worlds" that reveals that even the most inept filmmaker in Hollywood has at least a modicum of skill and savvy.

I sincerely recommend this movie for all aspiring filmmakers. It very clearly illustrates just how baddly filmmaking can be done. I'm serious! The worst staright-to-video horror flick you ever rented? THIS is WORSE! I'm not exaggerating.

But I won't go on about that movie. (I burdenned my filmmaking buddies in interminable detail about some of the specifics of this film's mistakes.) Suffice it to say that if you're ever tempted to think "Well this is GOOD ENOUGH" a viewing of this attempt at adapting War of the Worlds will encourage you to work longer and harder!

But anyway... This has been a night of bad flicks. Which is groovy! I was in the headspace to tollerate them! Sometimes is useful to see exactly what not to do. You feel better about where you are, creatively, and get impitus to not slack-off! It can be difficult and disheartening to ONLY measure yourself against those who inspire you. (Though over-exposure to those less creatively mature than you can quickly give you a false sense of security! You want to be LIKE your heroes, not merely UNLIKE the kids on the short bus!)

And I've gotta say that tonight's movie viewing makes me eager to re-evaluate the pages I've already written. How far am I away from the short bus?