What a TERRIFIC day today has been!!!
First off, I woke up to groovy, pretty, stormy weather that didn't hurt anyone I know but just provided an exciting, invigorating vibe! :)
Always a cool way to wake up!
Then I finally got around to converting my The Cure CDs to mp3s, so I was able to drive to work with EXCELLENT music!
I got to work late. :(
But once at work, everything went smoothly -- which is particularly note-worthy because usually when there is severe weather, working at a TV station can get very complicated!
(This gets interesting, I promise. I'm just building up to the really cool parts...)
Then after my work was done, I got to chat some with My Genius Friend Dave, with whom Brian & I are writing a screenplay based on a joke he once made.
That was cool, because I simply told him of a type of character I'm trying to create for the dynamic of the story, and he gave me not only the character, but also created some very valuable backstory that makes the world of the movie a great deal richer and more interesting! :D
Then after he left and I was all alone at work, I was able to work on that script a bit, as well as an audio story that's fallen into my lap.
I didn't plan to work on either of these stories tonight; it just sort of happened and I got some valuable work done!
Also, there's a really cool thing that happened a couple of day ago, but I haven't blogged about it yet. So I'm going to arbitrarily cram it into here:
But a little background first...
At the beginning of this month I mentioned that I was reading Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies. That's a book by Blake Snyder, a screenwriter who has taken all the academia out of the screenplay development process and broken it down to a clear, streamlined process that amps up the both the entertainment value and the market value of your screenplay by, like, 100%.
What makes his approach so revolutionary is his approach to genre: Being a professional screenwriter, he doesn't think of movies in terms of "It's a sci-fi flick" or "It's a comedy" since these terms don't really tell you anything about what's really going on in the story. What he and his writer friends have come up with is alternative genres, such as "It's a Dude With A Problem flick" or "It's a Monster In The House movie". Even if you don't know exactly what elements go into the movie, you've got a much better idea what the story might be about!
It's AMAZING!
I read his second book first because the Barnes & Noble on my way to work had it, but they didn't have his first book -- Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need -- in stock. So I ordered it online and read the second book while I waited, hehe. :)
One of the cool tools he has created is a beat sheet: It's sort of a structural guide to breaking the story of your movie. (You can download a copy here...)
But the structure is set up for a feature-length story.
Because of the audio idea I've got (which I was thinking of doing as a series of 3 1-hour episodes that make up one long story) I got to wondering if maybe the beats could be condensed into an hour-long format. If so, this could be useful for writing more well-rounded episodes of TV shows, as well!
So, for my own purposes, I played around with the structure and found a way to -- I hoped -- successfully condense it from 120 pages to 60 pages, keeping the structure in place. (Meaning that you don't just cut the pages numbers in half, you also consider how long each section should play for, as well.)
But I wasn't sure if I had gotten it right, so I emailed Mr. Snyder to ask him what he thought. I was hoping that if I missed some important aspect of the structure he would point it out to me. (Assuming he had the time to reply at all... He's a working screenwriter, and he's also working on his 3rd Save the Cat! book, as well.)
I think it was the very next day that I got an email back from him, and he said I was -- and I quote -- "brilliant"!!! lol :D
Now, this is a guy who IS brilliant! I've read A LOT of books about screenwriting, by some really top-notch minds, and the majority of the work (though undeniably genius and valuable) always turns out (1) too theory-based to be practical for actually developing a story from the initial idea up, (2) overly simplified -- this is rare, but it occasionally is the case -- or (3) just plain impractical (in this category, I once read a book supposedly designed to help you write the "perfect" screenplay competition script, and "The Formula" the writer provided was just nonsense that looked good on paper, until you actually tried to apply your movie idea to it, lol). Snyder has found -- through experimentation in the industry, meaning that if his strategy worked he actually got a lot of money for the script he tried it in -- the perfect balance of theory and practical writing tools, so that a non-writer could follow his instructions and turn an idea for a movie into a 11-/120-page screenplay!
So to have him use that phrase in an email to me, and be pleased with the tinkering I did with his hard-earned work was kind of a thrill, hehe. :D
And I guess that fits in with this amazing day of mine because I got to tell My Genius Friend Dave last night at work, so I got to relive it again. :)
So now back to tonight...
I log onto ScriptFrenzy.org to see if they're gearing up to announce winners, and I'm greeted with this full-page YOU'RE A WINNER! message, providing me with banners I can put on my web pages (you'll notice the new Script Frenzy ticket thingy on my blog header) and a certificate I can print out and hang on a wall (which you can see at the top of this blog entry)!
And so I've had this really cool day, and I'm just about to head out the door and come home, when my phone rings...
6:00 am and my phone rings.
Who could be calling me this early? Especially on a Saturday morning!
IT'S MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! :D
She's at work (it's noon in the UK) and she had some down time, so she called me to give me some love and conversation! :D
What a sweetheart!!!
Lately we've been talking in the evning, about the time I wake up and she's headed to bed. So it was such an amazing surprise when she called me on my way out of work!
And with that, my day is complete, and I retire to blissful slumber. :)
I hope your day is full of wonderful, invigorating surprises!!!
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