Just uploaded a podcast with Gordy Hoffman – director of the Bluecat Screenplay Competition. Rather than putting my efforts into this BLOG this weekend, his talk was so inspiring, that I’ve decided to write my screenplay. I hope you don’t mind.

Also, I put up a rough site for our feature film, Beware the Stingray. Not quite sure what to do with it yet, but I guess I’ll use it as a repository for all things related to the movie. It’s a good year away from being shot, so I’m taking my queue from Richard E. Grant’s Wah Wah Diaries : the making of a film, and I’m self-publishing the diary before the film is made.

Had technical difficulties You-Tubing Indy Nile Investigates the other day. So stay tuned for that fun, 7 minute cartoon pilot (which screened on ABC TV in 2004).

Possibly nothing. Maybe there are too many w**kers complaining that there’s something wrong with the Australian film industry. Often you’ll discover these people write columns in the trouble-free, profitable, circulation-on-the-rise world of newspapers. Attacking the ABC or the AFI, AFC or FFC is so much simpler than admitting you’re on a sinking ship that is also on fire.

No comparison? Maybe. What seems to irk the newspaper experts is that public broadcasters and the state and national funding bodies are not as market-driven as newspapers have to be, by their nature. These public institutions often get it wrong. Newspapers often get it wrong. But no public money is expended when that happens.

So I guess the answer is to make The Oz Film Industry solely market-driven. Then all the films would be good like KENNY and not artsy, depressing, out of touch and terrible.

We should be as successful as Bollywood and Hollywood, obviously. Or at least other nations whose populations are similar to our own. Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Peru, Yeman and of course English-speaking CANADA! All these countries have thriving market-driven film industries whose product is sold around the world and is critically acclaimed at home and abroad. No?

Or maybe our film-industry is quite like the other faltering, government-assisted film industries of a number of other countries and this need to see us take on the world in equal terms comes from a 1970s notion of Australian filmmaking and its place in the world.

You know how we always feel a little cheated at the Olympics when Australia isn’t in the top five of the medal count? You know that oddly endearing way that we don’t consider it crazy to compare ourselves with nations that are sometimes 10 times larger than we are? (oi! Oi! OI!)

Might be a bit of that going on.

I think we’re all a little too taken with Anthony Robbins style bullsh*t about living the dream and achieving it no matter what the odds are. I love the plucky way that Australia continues to believe the level playing field myth about trade.

The WHAT’S WRONG? story and the WASTING TAX PAYERS MONEY story is a lot easier to write than researching the big picture thoroughly.

I dunno the answer.

And neither do they.

I just uploaded Bertolt. More people will seeing it via YouTube than will ever see it in cinemas. It’s been up there for 5 hours and so far 5 people have seen it. I’m posting it here because I’d like your comments and feedback. Good and bad. So, please – don’t be shy.

Some great Open Source software has just been released for screenwriters, poets and novelists. It’s called CELTX and seems to have mroe functionality than the much more expensive, Final Draft. Despite the focus on “creative contribution” (writers can upload a piece of writing, insert images, work with other writers and get feedback) it has a Hollywood standard, easy-to-use fully functioning FREE screenplay formatting software. I’ve been pulling my hair out with Word for the last two weeks. Download it writers!

In an effort to win a bit of our old presence on the web, a new podcast has been added, so be sure to check it out.

I’ve started writing something very strange. Yellow Lipstick, Yellow Hair is the title of a new screenplay I’m writing – by myself. Phil is to script edit it when I have a rough draft. Carmelo (the producer of Beware the Stingray) is keen to do a no-budget feature and has offered his HD equipment so I will be shooting the movie before the end of March and editing throughout the year (between websites).

In a futuristic world where more than 10 minutes of sunlight spells certain death, 3 strangers; an animist, a naturist and a paranoid neurotic spend their 4 week government-allocated holiday mooching around indoors.

There’s a little bit more to mooching around, but in the present draft – it’s mooching around. I’ll be podcasting a script session soon. So stay tuned.

Not to sound jaded, but I can but agree with Edwin. A good idea is nothing until it is turned into some kind of document. Only at outline, treatment or script stage, have you created something that other people (with money) can look at.

Before that point, it is all locked in your mind where it’s shiny and brilliant. The lighting, editing, performances, locations, dialogue and music are perfect. Note that only one of these elements – dialogue – will actually be in your script.

If you see the film unfolding in your mind, with all the above elements working together in perfect unison, you may in fact, be a potential director rather than a writer.

I remember saying in a room full of screenwriters, that it is the writer’s job to create a blueprint for the film. This idea was not exactly greeted with applause or joy. I believe if you want to control all the elements, then you’d better get hyphenated and add “-director” to your title.

Because no matter how excellent your idea is in your head, no matter how great you get it looking on the page, it still has to make it to the screen intact. All those aesthetic and technical elements have to be working together in order for your great idea to survive.

In fact, if you are an unhyphenated screenwriter like myself, the second most difficult to task after getting it from the back of the mind and onto the page is keeping enthusiastic about the idea.

To have an idea that thrills you and then keep working on it year in and year out – that takes some concentration. Sprinters don’t make good screenwriters – it’s a marathon event.

P.S. The above photo is a knitted clown doll called “Melancholoy Sid”. Every screenwriter needs a talisman of some kind, this is mine. Suss out ‘The Artist’s Way” or the works of Joseph Campbell. It’s probably in there somewhere.

I run a filmmaker’s website and most of the queries I get about screenwriting (or even filmmaking) amount to roughly the same thing . . . “I have a really good idea for a screenplay”. It’s not what I want to hear because I know myself, in the early days, I said exactly the same thing – and often. I now know that basically – it’s meaningless warm air.

I dread the day someone tells me their idea and it’s a good one and I go away and write it down - legally claiming all copyright to an idea they may have had in their family for generations. That’s right. Your idea is only legally an idea if it is written. Of course, I wouldn’t take someone’s idea like that – not without telling them. But legally, I would be well within my rights. After all, I have reams and reams of evidence to say that I write screenplays. And for every screenwriter, life is research. Conversations are the best research.

The “I have a really great idea for a film” statement requires greater scrutiny. It’s a statement not without merit. Indeed (but highly doubtfully) it may even be true. It’s probably driven by a burning need to do something. Or at least, the need to be seen by others to do be doing something. And there’s something in that. Sometimes it is good to be seen to be doing something – even if you’re not doing anything. Especially by the right people; investors, clients, society in general. People feel accepted when they are seen to be doing something. It does something for the confidence.

The actual process of writing is long and arduous and often boring. By the time you’ve written a screenplay 15 or so times (like we have) you’re a little bit over the “I’ve got a really good idea for a film”. Getting someone to read your 100+ page manuscript is a Kafka-esque trial in itself.

I’ve just uploaded the website for The Last Train to Freo. The crew and cast are all panicking and I can feel their excitement as we approach September 14th (release date). And somehow I feel a part of that – because I’m their web guy. They don’t know that I’m also a writer / filmmaker. As the web guy, I get to talk and deal with all the distributors and all the important film people. Directors, investors etc.

I feel like a guy who has a really great idea and just has to let it out – probably to the most inappropriate person in the chain of command. Like I’ve got a scrunched up piece of tissue-paper in my back pocket with a script idea on it and I’ve got butterflies in my pocket because I’m about to do an impromptu pitch. How great would it be if I gave my pitch right over the phone during a file upload? To the new marketing girl – or even the secretary at Dendy Films.

That would be wrong, readers. Very very wrong.

Don’t perform your idea, write it.

Pitching is the thing you do after the film is written. Indeed, some kids these days go straight into production on the computers in their own bedrooms. But there’s a lot to be said about that and I don’t have the time here.

I have to go. I feel anxious.

I’m about to do something towards my next screenplay . . .

Right now, it’s just a really great idea.

I looked at my diary. I’ve recently started recording my time spent doing stuff (and not doing stuff) and I’ve always been under the impression that my day job (as a web designer/tutor) has always been at loggerheads with my passion (filmmaking). I don’t think I’m the first creative person to have anxiety over this.

However, according to time, it seemed that the opposite was the case.

Out of 5 work days last week, I spent;

• 2.5 days working on my screenplay with Phil
• 1 day collating the information necessary for a SPAAmart application
• 1 full day doing websites and
• 0.5 days tutoring (or as I like see it – sharing knowledge acquired from above)

I was an almost perfect balance.

Try doing it. Record your hours for a week (or minutes if you’re a lawyer) and see what the passion Vs. day job ratio is.

If you are getting paid to write – even if it’s as little as $500 for a script – you are probably going to be working with a script producer or script editor – especially if it’s a TV show with episodes. That’s because – whoever is giving you the money – is being told to deliver a certain thing to the broadcaster and your script needs to bend like a reed, Grasshopper in an effort to make it consistent with other epoisodes.

This is writing to house style. More often than not, the script editor (and sometimes the TV producer) will rewrite your piece wholesale. It’s not a bad thing – but a lot of people don’t know this going in and new writers get burnt (read hurt).

House style means to a writer pretty much the same thing as result-oriented direction means to a director. At some point, you are going to be told what to write. You are not going to be left to your own devices a you are when writing your feature film screenplay.

If you’re writing TV, you can bet someone is reading your screenplay – regularly – and really closely. Getting somebody to even read your feature screenplay is the hard part. And for the most part you don’t get paid!

Here’s another approach to writing your screenplay. The screenwriter’s friend. Introducing the infamous Three by Five Card Index System.

Wow! How can I get one?

In my case – I made it. What it amounts to is this: Three 90cm x 40cm sheets of chipboard hinged together so that the whole thing stands like a concertina on a table or floor.

Every 5cm or so down, I have drawing-pinned small cardboard hinges (triangles if you will) made from old file dividers. These become placeholders for your cards.

A couple of bunches of 3 inch by 5 inch index cards (available in packs of 100 at any newsagency) and there you have it. A sure fire way to make your screenplay bubble to the top of the pile . . . Not. But it’s a tool and writers need their tools.

Cool. How does it work?

As you can see – each act has three mini-acts in it (fitting in with Australian script theorist Linda Heys’ Second Act Story). Or rather – going one step further and suggesting that all three acts have a beginning, middle and end. You can see from our picture, that we have yet to rewrite our 3rd act. The 3 x 5 card system will only work if you already have a screenplay – even a rough one. Each card represents a scene. We write the scene heading with any rewrite notes underneath. If we feel that there’s too much of one character or we want to move to another location (often a hunch thing) we leave a space in the cards so we can go back and fill it in – or at least identify and fix the problem.

Tomorrow we approach our screenplay with trepidation because the third act is a doozy.

Our synopsis is in and we meet with the Film Finance Corporation late July. Nobody will even read our new screenplay for a few months yet. The FFC just want to talk about marketing, casting, ideas – that sort of thing.

I write 2 days per week with Phil. We’ve given up on the idea of three because life is just too – well – busy. So I just bought a laptop and today I pick up Viki King’s 21 Days to Write a Screenplay. I’m, hopefully, about to start a speed draft of a genre screenplay Phil and I have mapped out.

Once the rough draft is done, the three by five card system will come out again and Phil will rip into my draft as I stand there pumping iron and shifting cards around on the board. Feeling irritable because – even though we’ve worked together for years – when anyone criticises my work, it always feels like someone is tugging an unborn child from my writer’s womb.

Am I helping, kids?

One gets to a point – in the second act – when one hits the blues. Phil and I fear it as we write. As we edge closer to the midpoint. The second act is doing a lot of stuff. It’s more than 60 pages long. It’s the new world and its midpoint . . . the belly of the beast. That’s if you wanna quote the Syd Fields, Chris Voglers or the Bobby McKees of this world. We prefer not to at this stage.

So far we haven’t hit it. Maybe it’s coming – maybe not – but we are treading very carefully (p55) as we go . . . Everything seems to be in order. Katy is having some very interesting moments of self-discovery. She is certainly finding herself. That’s clear. But where will she go next? We wonder (we actually know because this is a 4th draft not a rough draft – but we wonder anyway).

We’ve nearly finished our synopsis. 3 drafts of that so far. 5 and it will be ready to send. The AWG want synopses by Tuesday.

Later . . .