Hello, friends! It is I, Fabrizio Giullare, your favourite author. Since I last spoke to you there has been a major development in my career: I've gone into writing movie scripts. Yes, you read that right, and I'm so pleased about it. Though, I'm not surprised; it was only a matter of time before someone recognised the genius of pieces such as Little Plants and Fluff and Corkscrew Bandana Dancers. It did take them longer than I'd anticipated, mind you.
What did take me by surprise was the direction that the production company wanted me to go in: horror. Now, I've never shied away from any genre, but I've never found myself dipping my toes in the same waters as Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft or anyone else with three names. The man from Broad Tedium Films is a very persuasive person and convinced both myself and my agent that my personal style fits and this would be a fantastic idea.
So this left me with something of a dilemma. I've never watched any horror films either. So I got down to my local rental place and picked up a few movies that sounded good. I didn't go for anything that had been given a theatrical release, as I thought that would just be vulgar, instead going for offerings that had gone straight to DVD. I watched several of them over the course of a most educational week and gleaned what I could from them.
I had the tools required to create a fantastic horror tale. Granted, some of the tools were already in my possession.
For example I'm a firm believer in 'Why have drama when you can have turgid sequences of nothing happening?' and it looks like most of these horror film makers have that same wonderful philosophy – Dread and The Broken being fine examples of this. My own fifteen hundred page novel Clogged Pores in Pall Mall is about one man staring at a drop of water going down a wall. It's something of a masterpiece and a personal triumph for me. Seeing that I could bring that kind of unrelenting lack of event to the screen filled me with a giant, quivering sense of excitement.
Then there's the greatly overrated trait of internal story logic. Why have a character do something that makes any kind of sense in favour of having them jump in random directions? I love to set up characters who, for example, clearly hate and fear cows to then have them go and purchase one as a pet, without one word of explanation. That jarring sense of confusion is just what the reader or, in this case, the watcher needs to make sure they stick around. It's one of my favourite writer's tools.
Of course I have had to wade out into the deep waters of brevity for this project, but then you can't have everything. I've just had to make sure the film seems like it's twelve hours long.
All in all I think I've done a damned fine job on it. I can't wait for Windmilling Arms to appear on the shelves of rental shops and music store chains.
Happy writing!
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Friday, 17 August 2012
Thursday, 14 June 2012
There's actual sunlight?
My, but I like my films. I enjoy sitting and letting myself be taken away by a story. Or failing that, I enjoy mocking the cack-fisted attempts at story thrown together, recorded and called a film.
In the last month or so I've been watching a lot of films. I've gone through more new (for me) films in the last few weeks than I've seen in the previous two years. It's left my head crammed with all sorts of silliness, so I thought I'd spray you with some nonsense about my film-viewing.
You won't be surprised to learn that a lot of this will be negative, with Viewing Joe that I am pointing and laughing at the pitiful abortions plastered on the screen in hopes of eking money from me. And they might want to entertain, too, but it's harder to prove that.
Micmacs is a prime example of a jolly good film. It has 'we are crazy French film makers' plastered all over it, but that's fine, because it's charming and you actually like this odd collection of characters and you can't help but applaud what they're doing.
Not something that can be said for Dread. I should have been on my guard the moment one of the half dozen or so producers was Clive Barker. Pushing aside my misgivings I watched and an age passed, humanity went extinct around me and a new civilisation of floating amphibious celeriac came to power. Then I look at the time: I'd been sitting for ten minutes. Arrrgh! What the fuck, man? Did you people set out to make the most boring, boneheaded film ever? You probably failed, but you weren't that far off. You didn't add any interest by tagging on a torture porn third act. Dead-eyed, humourless and boring are not how horror films should be. That's something you should've learned in primary school.
At least Rec. and Rec. 2 had a bit of life about them. They were still bunk, but they managed to make the 'found footage' film interesting to me. No mean feat after seeing the snooze-and-whine-fest The Blair Witch Project in the cinema (although, in fairness, it's a better experience on television, just). The films start off silly and just keep getting dafter as they go on. But they pull the case zero apocalypse thing that I find overdone and dull too.
Still, better than Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. A whinging, creepy main character surrounded by annoying caricatures isn't an inviting premise. The saving grace of this film are the fight scenes, but you have to wade through dreary navel-gazing scenes of unfunny dialogue to get to them. If I wanted to do that I'd watch The Ultimate Fighter on TV. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed by this if there hadn't been months a couple of years ago of people dribbling about how fucking awesome it was. You were wrong, you bastards.
The same applies to Super 8. This is another film that commits the supreme sin of being fucking tedious. I had the curious feeling when it was being advertised with the desperation of a failed writer trying to get you to buy his wares (what the fuck are you looking at, shit clomp, go about your business). And yes. it was terrible, stupid and dull, just like a Tory MP. The best part of it was the intentionally shit film they showed over the credits.
Weeks before I sat down to churn my way through Super 8 I'd decided to give Salt a go. I was presented with the world's longest pilot for an '80s television pilot, right down to setting up a baddie of the week structure. Clearly this was both fantastic and horrifying to watch in equal measure.
I've watched a lot more than that, but I'm not Rotten fucking Tomatoes, you want recommendations, go there.you bastards, stop expecting me to do WORK!
Will
In the last month or so I've been watching a lot of films. I've gone through more new (for me) films in the last few weeks than I've seen in the previous two years. It's left my head crammed with all sorts of silliness, so I thought I'd spray you with some nonsense about my film-viewing.
You won't be surprised to learn that a lot of this will be negative, with Viewing Joe that I am pointing and laughing at the pitiful abortions plastered on the screen in hopes of eking money from me. And they might want to entertain, too, but it's harder to prove that.
Micmacs is a prime example of a jolly good film. It has 'we are crazy French film makers' plastered all over it, but that's fine, because it's charming and you actually like this odd collection of characters and you can't help but applaud what they're doing.
Not something that can be said for Dread. I should have been on my guard the moment one of the half dozen or so producers was Clive Barker. Pushing aside my misgivings I watched and an age passed, humanity went extinct around me and a new civilisation of floating amphibious celeriac came to power. Then I look at the time: I'd been sitting for ten minutes. Arrrgh! What the fuck, man? Did you people set out to make the most boring, boneheaded film ever? You probably failed, but you weren't that far off. You didn't add any interest by tagging on a torture porn third act. Dead-eyed, humourless and boring are not how horror films should be. That's something you should've learned in primary school.
At least Rec. and Rec. 2 had a bit of life about them. They were still bunk, but they managed to make the 'found footage' film interesting to me. No mean feat after seeing the snooze-and-whine-fest The Blair Witch Project in the cinema (although, in fairness, it's a better experience on television, just). The films start off silly and just keep getting dafter as they go on. But they pull the case zero apocalypse thing that I find overdone and dull too.
Still, better than Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. A whinging, creepy main character surrounded by annoying caricatures isn't an inviting premise. The saving grace of this film are the fight scenes, but you have to wade through dreary navel-gazing scenes of unfunny dialogue to get to them. If I wanted to do that I'd watch The Ultimate Fighter on TV. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed by this if there hadn't been months a couple of years ago of people dribbling about how fucking awesome it was. You were wrong, you bastards.
The same applies to Super 8. This is another film that commits the supreme sin of being fucking tedious. I had the curious feeling when it was being advertised with the desperation of a failed writer trying to get you to buy his wares (what the fuck are you looking at, shit clomp, go about your business). And yes. it was terrible, stupid and dull, just like a Tory MP. The best part of it was the intentionally shit film they showed over the credits.
Weeks before I sat down to churn my way through Super 8 I'd decided to give Salt a go. I was presented with the world's longest pilot for an '80s television pilot, right down to setting up a baddie of the week structure. Clearly this was both fantastic and horrifying to watch in equal measure.
I've watched a lot more than that, but I'm not Rotten fucking Tomatoes, you want recommendations, go there.you bastards, stop expecting me to do WORK!
Will
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