I was travelling down memory lane recently at my dad's house, going through a bunch of things I wrote a long time ago. It was interesting for me and a bit nostalgic, it reminded me of the kind of guy I was while I was writing these. Most of them are no good and if I ever become famous for being a writer, I fear these will someday come out as some kind of unpublished work. But anyway I just wanted to talk about what was going through my mind as I was writing these. And yes these are by the way screenplays, so consider this a literary commentary.
The Most Wonderful Movie: I wrote this in the 8th grade. I don't remember very much about it, our English teacher gave us full reign as this was our last writing assignment of the year meaning we could take any writing structure we wanted. I chose screenplay and I knew I was the only one in class to do that. I remember at the beginning wanting to make some kind of a disaster film, I remember wanting a fire to happen in a school and no one could get out. As I was writing it I didn't like it, to tell you the truth I didn't like the thought of characters burning in a fire, it depressed me. "The Most Wonderful Movie" was meant to be a positive message, I don't remember the entire story but it was about a young filmmaker who comes to Hollywood wanting to make the kind of movie no one makes anymore. At the time I was into a lot of Frank Capra films so I think I was trying to emulate his movies, I remember the climax ended in a "Mr.Smith" type of monologue. I read it over a few years ago and all I remember of that was thinking how I put every feel good movie cliche in it. However I did get an "A-" on the final product, but I think that was partially for originality for choosing to write a screenplay.
Tom Stewart's Saturday Nights/Tom Stewart: In ninth grade a wrote a short story entitled "My Saturday Night" which involved a young man going on a date that goes horribly wrong, I don't remember the whole story other than I think it ended on the hero vomiting on the date. The story was mostly one big joke, my teacher gave me a "B" on it, saying it cheered her up while she was sick marking it. Basically this joke took on a life of its own and I decided to write a full length screenplay about it. "Tom Stewart's Saturday Nights" was the first draft where the first scene is pretty much the short story. I made Tom Stewart a comedy writer for a tv variety show (I was years ahead of "30 Rock"), but basically it turned out to be a romantic comedy. A couple of years past and I decided to revisit the character of Tom Stewart for some reason, this time I gave him a complete facelift and turned him into a rich socialite, I remember thinking I wanna write a film that Cary Grant would've starred in. So "Tom Stewart" then became a screwball comedy. The story basically turns to Tom falling for a middle class girl who doesn't fall for his usual tricks, and in the end he gets some kind of comeuppance. I remember having a lot of fun writing this story, I was trying to go for sophisticated dialogue that would be seen in those old movies like "The Philadelphia Story", or "His Girl Friday". I remember this was the script where I spent most time creating characters that I thought were funny. I made Tom's whole family a bunch of eccentrics and really enjoyed writing them. Reading through it again only reminded me how much I enjoyed that world.
The Devil's Heat: In the 10th grade, I attempted to make my first real film. "The Devil's Heat" was an old fashioned gangster movie like the ones by James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. I actually collaborated on this one with my friend Doug, together we made up the story then I wrote the script and directed the film. It was your basic prohibition gangster picture about a mobman and his goons robbing a bank. The real problem happens when a plucky young reporter witnesses one of goons rubbing a guy out. He then proceeds to write about it, causing to put himself and his gal in danger. As usual I thought the script was gold, reading it over again I was laughing at how cliched the dialogue was, it's definitely written by someone who has seen one too many Cagney movies, but I actually was somewhat impressed with myself. There were actually two drafts of "The Devil's Heat", the first draft consisted of the reporter's girlfriend getting killed, and then the gangster's girlfriend being shot too. I decided to cut that I don't know what it is but I had a problem with killing off my characters in such brutal ways.
Filming "The Devil's Heat" was for the most part a lot of fun, the problem was with casting, we pretty much cast all our friends but most of them never showed up when they were supposed to. We were able to film the opening scene where I do a cameo as a gangster who gets shot. We also were able to film most of the climax and a lot of other gangster type scenes. I was really into Anthony Mann westerns at the time and the climax is completely stolen from his films, as we end it on a cliff, I also stole the scene from Mann's "The Man from Laramie" where Jimmy Stewart is shot point blank in the palm of his hand. I never got to film that scene but it was in the script. "The Devil's Heat" was soon put on the back burner and as far as I know all the footage has been destroyed never to be seen again. Sigh!
Writer's Block: Written during my last year in high school, "Writer's Block" was yet another stab at romantic comedy. This was probably the first time I put a bit of myself into the main character. The character's name was Joe who was a famous novelist although he's not that talented, but he acquired a niche for himself writing books about sports that were really popular to his male audience. Joe is also like Tom Stewart a bit of a womanizer, but this was meant to be more realistic. Most of the story revolves around Joe and his friends all of which were based on real friends I had at the time. Basically what happens is Joe falls for a girl named Katherine and he starts to have real feelings for someone at the same time, but like Tom Stewart he receives a comeuppance at the end. I guess I was just going for a modern anti-romantic comedy when I wrote this, unlike Tom Stewart which was more of the screwball vein. As a side note to this, while I was writing the finale I had just been dumped by my first girlfriend which I think added a bit to the ending which turned out to be a little more downbeat than I first anticipated.
Edgar (Short and Feature) I didn't write a script for a long time after high school and it wasn't till I got to College in film school I finally was able to write something. To this day I don't think I got a good grasp on "Edgar", other than to say he was basically the closest I ever came to be a full on autobiographical character. "Edgar" the short film was basically a day in the life of this guy going through his highs and lows. Edgar was somewhat of a self-proclaimed philosopher who thought a lot. I was given a chance to film the short version which didn't come without its share of headaches. Somewhere in filming I lost my original idea and I caved into listening to too many people telling me how to direct it, I still have the film and to this day I know there is only one shot in it I am proud of because that is the one shot I can say was mine and how I originally envisioned it.
There were still people invested in the character of Edgar and I myself saw him going somewhere else. I wrote "Edgar" the feature as a project for my final year in film school. I'm still debating if this was the right version of Edgar, in it I have him in flashbacks losing the girl of his dreams then struggling to make a new life for himself. Reading it over I found that Edgar was less of an active participant in the story and more of an observer. The new film opened the canvas to introducing more characters which is something I really liked, but I spent too much time introducing those characters than telling a really worthwhile story.
In the end, "Edgar" stopped before it got started, there were many students competing to make their own features, and personally I was not that invested in the story to make it happen.
I look back at "Edgar" as my very first attempt at creating something that was trying to be original and personal at the same time. I would say it was more of a learning experience than anything. I can look at Edgar the character now and distance myself from him, seeing how much I have changed since that experience. I still share a lot of attributes to Edgar, but in many respects represents the past for me.
End of Spring: Two years past since "Edgar" when I finally finished another script. "End of Spring" started as an experiment. Since film school we were told the right way to write a screenplay, and that was frustrating. Writing anything shouldn't be limited to a set of rules to live by. "End of Spring" was my attempt to write something just for me. This was the time I was tired of going to movies that no longer stimulated me, I was finding what my own tastes were and the movie theatres weren't reflecting that, I wanted to make a film that I wanted to see.
I didn't really have a story in mind, so I did what I usually do when I'm stuck and wrote anything. I started with a man and a woman having a conversation, it was all very mundane, then suddenly I had the woman say "What if we got married", suddenly I had a hook. "End of Spring" became the story of a young couple who are both actors (personal experience) both must work to support their art, but they are young and in love. But suddenly the girl becomes pregnant and the rest of the story has to do with them finding a new life for themselves.
I had just finished reading a book about the films of Yasujiro Ozu, and I was fascinated with the way he wrote his scripts, mostly they were scenarios done in a somewhat episodic way. What Ozu did was strip away the story from plot points (something screenplay books teach us always to use). By stripping the story from only necessary plot points, Ozu is able to concentrate on character and theme, it didn't really matter what the main plot was, but only about what it made you feel. This philosophy really spoke to me and I decided to write the script with that in mind.
I would say of any full length thing I wrote, "End of Spring" was the one I was most proud of and delighted with when I finished. I remember thinking how much I couldn't wait to get home and write more for these characters. In a way they became my friends and writing for them was a way to hang out with them. Honestly at the end I felt more as a writer than ever before.
Looking back I still feel the story itself holds up, it is in need for some rewrites, but for the first time I felt I was really finding my own voice.
Untitled/Good Morning (In progress) "Good Morning" happened nearly a year ago, based on a girl I did a show with. So far I have never re-written a scene so many times than with the opening of this. The first scene actually turned into a one act play which I wrote about earlier. Basically this is a companion piece of "End of Spring" about a girl who again is faced with a life she had not anticipated and wondering if she could be happy. Like "Edgar" it's sort of a day in the life of this character, with me wanting each separate scene to stand alone as its own short film. This idea has been swimming in my head for quite awhile, I'm not sure what is to be done with it, but it will not leave me, I'm hoping this is the one where I may finally once again step behind the camera to try to direct again. Here's hoping.
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