The rough patch

It has been some time since I posted here. But it’s not because this blog is gasping for breath. I have been really busy with preparation for my exams. I am also scrambling to complete the thriller script which I am cowriting with a friend. About 90 pages has been completed. We expect to hit the end in around 120 pages. It’s shuttling back and forth right now through mail.
I will become a regular blogger again after first week of December. Until then, take care.

District 9

What I found interesting about this movie is it’s structure. It unfolds in a documentary style with a lot of ’shaky’ footage kind of visuals. Considering that it’s a sci fi action movie, the treatment is interesting.
The theme also puts everything on it’s head. Aliens are here already. They had come in a space ship which now hovers over the city. They were in a very poor condition when they reached here. Malnourished, sick. Currently they live in a secluded colony in Johannesburg in extremely poor conditions. ‘Ethnic conflicts’ frequently arise between humans and aliens, forcing the government to evict the aliens (known as ‘prawns’) to a separate area. This is the general back ground of the story.
Here the highlight is not on the sci-fi/spectacular aspect of it but rather on the human nature- our capability to be greedy, selfish and ruthless.

The great thing about district 9 is that story telling has not been sacrificed for some directorial gimmicks. We care about the protagonist who in this case is a journalist reporting the events in the conflict zone. The story is about his transformation- both psychological and physical.

What I learned from this movie is that experimenting with the narrative need not actually jarr your enjoyment of the movie. It’s still possible to test the limits of the craft without testing the limits of the patience of your audience.

Co-writing the thriller

The treatment and the scene index for the thriller have been done. Now we have started co-writing the script. I wrote the  first 9 pages and emailed to my friend in Mumbai who wrote the next 10 pages and so on.  There has been some other developments also regarding this getting produced but it is too early to write about it here. I will write in detail about the co-writing experience later on.
Photo by Blunder

Then who will read my fucking script?

Shahul sent me the link to an article named ‘I will not read your fucking script’ by John Olson, the writer of the adapted screenplay ‘History of violence.’

Basically the article talks about issues regarding some one requesting to give notes on their scripts. Appears that some ‘mutual’ friend was not happy with Olson’s take on his script which lead to a fall out. The essence of his argument is that reading some one’s screenplay takes a substantial amount of your time with extra time for making notes on it- why should some one waste time on it when in the end most probably truth will be rewarded with grudges? And he raises the point that no one really understands what it takes to read some one’s (bullshit) script and comment on it. A struggling writer is asking for a professional opinion. But do you ask a doctor for a medical opinion in between a party?

Well I can understand Olson. It also gives an inkling regarding the dynamics involved while offering your script to someone to read. We take it for granted that this should not be much of a trouble. ‘It’s only 120 pages.’ But what a budding scriptwriter doesn’t understand is that a celebrity (film maker) gets thousands of such requests in a week. So though a refusal may appear rude, showing any kind of consideration will be devastating.

So how should a budding writer approach such a situation?

Scripting emotional scenes

Désirée wrote a post regarding emotion in scripts. It kept me thinking- whether we can use logic in writing emotion in our scenes. I think we can use logic in writing better emotional scenes. But it is an area where our intuition overrides our conscious planning.

Still I think there are some general rules that we can follow.

Don’t try too hard

If I think about all those scenes that have really worked for me, one thing about all of them is that they are subtle. I didn’t feel that writer/ character was actively trying to grab my empathy. Consider the scene in Forrest Gump where he reacts to the knowledge that the boy who is watching TV in front of him is actually his son. He almost weeps with joy and asks, ‘Is he smart?’ Never before in the movie has Gump expressed any emotion regarding he being a little dull. But when he asks that question we realise that this has been the thing that has defined his thoughts through out his life and that knowledge somehow touches us.

Hit when the iron is hot

 It takes some intuition to get the timing right. For me the emotional peak of Titanic was not when Jack died. It is after the end of the flashbacks, when the old Ross lies to sleep (or die?) and gradually drifts off to the intact Titanic and the waiting Jack. It gives us a longing to go back in time when the tragedy was yet to happen.

Juggling the juggles

Exams are coming up in December. It’s a wonder that I still am posting here. In the writing department, not much structured writing is getting done. But still a lot of outlining is going on in bits and pieces. Outlining is easier in times like this because you can fit in small small fragments between the hectic schedule- you don’t have to actually sit down and write.

Regarding the heist script, I am a little confused regarding some changes that I am thinking of. I wanted to experiment with the identity of my female protagonist. I have doubts regarding the credibility of her being what she is right now. But the problem with changing the female protagonist is that I will have to rewrite a lot of scenes. It’s not the effort involved in rewriting them that is bothering me. But I will have to cut out many favorite scenes of mine from the first draft. Lets see whether I can come up with some ‘killer’ solution which will justify losing all those scenes.

Also I want to fit in the outlining of my next feature length script in between. It has been in the burner for the last 2-3 years. I have outlined the major part of the story which is about a couple and how success comes in between them. This drama has been something close to my heart for sometime. It is also the genre that I like most.

I want to experiment with different genres before I settle down on one particular type. In writing it need not be that the genre you like to read is what you do best while writing. Look at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He wanted to do serious stuff but people liked Sherlock Holmes better.

Photo by Diana Popan

Milan Kundera and the ghost of Jinnah

 

The Jaswant Singh debacle has again brought Jinnah back from the dead. Interestingly exoneration/conviction of Jinnah is an issue that we still are not able to remove from our collective minds. Definitely we want a villain for the partition blood baths and our minds are not that accustomed to gray players.

 When I went through the articles that appeared in net and magazines, my first thought was that how slippery the truth is. Jinnah was disturbed by the ‘big brother’ attitude of Indian National Congress especially after the elections in 1938 but finally during the time of partition came across as very adamant and unreasonable to every one including Lord Mountbatten. But what we don’t know is what was going on in his mind. We will have to stop all history there. Was his motive really ambition for power or a steely resolve due to feeling of being subjugated or just plain inflexibility of thought? We will never know. Because history can only deal with events- rest of it is just speculation.

But what I am more intrigued about is the traditional stance of Indians and Pakistanis.

Developing a concept

 

 

 

 Sometime back Dev asked me the process by which I develop a script. From where do I start and how do I proceed.

Obviously there wont be a particular fixed way by which one go about it in making up different stories but still it made me think. The question is whether there is some general pattern in which my scripts develop. When I retrospect, there is no single common point of origin for the concepts that I am working on. Some of them have started off from some real incidents, some from a contemplation about the tone a particular story should be having, some from a particular character and some out of the blue.

For example the heist script I am working on started from a discussion between friends regarding scripts that helped for break throughs for the current writers in the industry.

Back in Delhi

Its great to be back in Delhi. But I am still still trying to figure out why. My friend (who currently is preparing his paper work for Australia) used to say-’I dont understand why people try to stick to Delhi like flies on a table.’
The question is valid. I have seen better weather. The dust around you start to disturb you like a metaphor. Crimes, pollution…And you spend most of your life waiting in your car in the traffic jam.
Despite all this, there is sense of respect that Delhi invokes in you. It doesnot have anything to do with being the capital of India. And its not only history what makes Delhi what it is. Delhi stands before me like an ancient king, silent but majestic.

90 minute thriller movie sailing on

The project I had mentioned earlier here is moving on slowly. After my initial treatment for the plot, there were lot of discusssions regarding the possibilities. My friend (who is supposed to direct the movie) has gone to the outhouse which is supposed to be the location of the film.
He sent me some pics of the place. Its then that I realised that many changes will have to be made to suit the location. For example lot of scenes have been planned to occur inside the outhouse- some major plot elements. But when I saw the pics, I realised that the outhouse is too small for this. But the same time there are lot of outdoor locations and elements that can be used which I had not figured earlier. For example a dam, a small pond, a small pump house, a forest etc. So now I will have to make some changes in the outline according to that. Some other suggestions also came up. Like use of voice over, to start the movie with a dream sequence etc which really helped me to increase the depth of the script. Hopefully I have been able to incorporate them in a meaningful way.
Now another issue is that an actor has shown some interest in the project. He may really play a role in securing good finances for the movie. So now the plan is to change the female protagonist to a male protagonist and make his role meatier. Now I am getting a hang of how really writers in film industry work. Logistics play a major role in determining your final draft.
Photo by Single Malt