by anita sands astrology@earthlink.net
Which is a better hobby: writing POLITICAL ARTICLES, (abstruse, knowledgeable and not very planet changing?) or wild armageddon FLICKS that lodge in viewers' unconscious like being bitchslapped at birth?
Not certain? OK. Let's do the math. Add up the +'s and minuses. These are the Formulas.
SELL ONE ARTICLE. l00 bucks if lucky. Script
l00 thousand if unlucky! Cuz some guys make 3mil! Every article
you send out ten times, statistically, you get one acceptance. Print out
hardcopy paper costly, not to mention printer ink, then big envelopes,
lotsa costly stamps, long drive to post office, get bumper mashed in crummy
garage they have there, not to mention stuck in the parking garage underground
with ten smoggers in front of you...but those are the dues with hard copy
mail out. Only if you're very lucky can you e-mail the thing out to some
magazine --like maybe if it's for some EMAG. The UPSIDE only l0 pages to
xerox. Downside, you earn absolutely NO MONEY in the E WORLD. A tad more
with magazines.
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Script. Every script you send out l00 times you
get one option. OPTION 20k. If it goes to stages, l00k. DOWNSIDE 100 pages
to xerox. OUCHEY! NOTE: XEROXING SCRIPTS costs l0 times higher but
the PAYCHECK is A THOUSAND TIMES HIGHER. DUHHHHHHH.
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ARTICLE WRITING. You Do the Research for weeks. Hang out at libraries, send away for big, dusty books. Cough dust. Compose PILES of illegible notes. Citing chapter, verse. You Sweat bullets. Write. Sweat more bullets. Try to figure out how to get WORD to do Footnotes. Accuracy stress. TAKES A WEEK of horrible stress to write it. And fail to footnote every bit of data, they're on you like a swarm of roaches.
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SCRIPT- Lie in pool, lie in park or forest, light a J. Do reverie to get your cards. Takes a few days. CARDS are an outline of what you think is a film parabola, CHARACTERs that fascinate with problems who need redemption and rebirth. Smokin' that doobie, joyously going in the front door of the script, meaning the thruline. "Earth Girl wants to get im pregnated by an Alien, puts an ad at Craigs list which a real alien spots." Then conceiving your villain (hmmmm.the alien's commandant, a real by the book guy) and make sure it's a unified force, a character as pungent as Jack Nicholson playing the LEERING man in Batman, as Precise as DR. NO, And dangerous as Hitler. Identifying real time scoundrels and roman a cleffing them into being your Dr. No might be nice. LIKE GEORGE BUSH SENIOR as the clerk to the REAL MR. HELL, some oligarch with deathwish. Not for himself, for 99% of the populace.. And then for good luck, imagine Jim Carrey as an earthman who also reads the ad. So that's the premise. We've got that much before we light the J. Start with the visuals. Make notes. Scene one is girl seeing clock ticking. Show us how. All visuals, your notes contain a minimum of dialogue.
DETAILS: 1.) Give us a deadline, like maybe
for this poor girl the CLOCK really is TICKING. Her grandpa said if you
don't have a child by forty I'm disinheriting you. That'll work- Figure
out the heart pace juice of a serious time deadline confronting characters.
2.) JEOPARDY- FIGURE out who is in danger. The girl is...cuz the alien
is really weird. Like he takes off his face at night and you wouldn't want
that baby!
3.) If you're writing a tragedy, figure out who
is the sacrifice person for shmaltz, the 'partner', the little brother
figure. He's that soldier next to Tom Hanks who gets killed. 4.) Figure
out what HORRORS might happen, what terrible stuff is at stake. For me,
WWII movies never cut it as we KNOW WHO WON THAT SUCKER!
FIGURE out is the wrong word. These elements will float out of your brew on their own. Sub plots, subcharacters may appear. Sounds complex but when you construct the plot sequentially in a swimming pool, the elements all surface like foam on water. Easy, no stress. And you have a blast as you're inside a dreamworld. ACTUAL WRITING of script takes 4 1/2 days once 'cards' are done and is a blast as you're living inside of a movie!
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BACK TO OUR ARTICLE VS FLICK COMPARISON.
In wake of ARTICLE being PUBLISHED. A
lot of right wing experts and fancy ass republicans will write you hate-notes
lambasting you for your commie nerve. And count on it, A FEW CONSTIPATED
old farts who wrote prior articles on the theme threaten to sue you for
cribbing!
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SOCIAL value of ARTICLE publication: You gotta force a chick to read it and maybe she respects you for being a high brow, but in truth, she is irritated and bored and could care less about PEAK OIL or the DEFINING FEATURES OF FASCISM. Doesn't seem sexy to them. YOUR PARENTS are embarassed by their commie son. Their friends don't know Joe and Mabel even have a son.
BUT WHEN a film is shot, you get to be on the set, lunch with the actors, the producers, the directors, do rewrites, feel needed. And IN WAKE OF the FILM being PRODUCED - EVEN HIGH BROW Girls want to sleep with you. Especially if your film had any pretense of a subtext. Ferrari dealers want to meet you. Your parents are proud, are planning to be in LA for the OSCAR CAST. They tell pals all about their great kid.
SOCIAL VALUE OF FILM- You entertain, make us laugh, thrill, weep so even HEAVEN looks down and sees that you were therapeutic and give you brownie stripes. There are a dozen socially redeeming films out there. *Click on that URL, see which! Maybe two dozen, which will live in history. So if you're lucky, there'll be this special room in heaven for writers of political thrillers like CONDOR, CHINA SYNDROME, ENEMY OF THE STATE....(see list above,)
Another very IMPORTANT features, a lotta paranoid fellows who'd be very hurtful if they had nothing to do are NOT BORED late at night. They are up watching your flick. They aren't out harming people.
WHAT ARE YOU, DUMB? IF YOU ARE SO DUMB that YOU
STILL WANT TO WRITE ARTICLES,
you are probably too dumb to write a movie! SO
who needs you? Go ahead and WRITE *#$&%#+%* ARTICLES. Maybe you can
be a GARY WEBB. He was so effective an Enemy of the State that they killed
him.