Thinking about doing some work...

This narratives business got me to thinking. Then thinking got me to procrastinating....

I once thought I understood the term 'narrative.' In fact, until recently, I really thought I understood a whole lot more than it turns out I actually do. The first step to becoming wiser is admitting that you know nothing. And personally, I like to think I know everything. It's apart of the rites-of-passage, coming-of-age hoopla that we all go through between the ages of 18-21. I'm a student, it's my stubborn and oblivious right to be ignorant to the facts through self-absorption and be smart-arsedly flippant about everything and everyone. I don't mind being an asshole if that's indeed what I have to be. I do wear sunglasses indoors afterall.

The objective of the post was originally going to be an attempt to discuss the narrative on a selected piece of television and how it works in a linear or non-linear capacity. I cannot, unfortunately, bring myself to do this. I have thought long and hard about it but just feel too preoccupied by thoughts of essay and script writing to tackle it satisfyingly. Truth is, I simply don't get it. Not the narrative thing, but the whole analytical deconstruction thing. Yes, it is true, it will help me to become a better writer. Yes, maybe knowing the rules and being able to analyse the conventions inherent within those rules will allow me to one day be able to break them in my own cute way. But in the end, this course is merely gearing us towards a schematically mundane future of disappointment where unfulfilled potential is a mandatory requirement on your Curriculum Vitae. We are slowly being prepared for mediocrity I believe. There is no belief, or that is, no true belief that real inspiration, real creativity, actually exists anymore and that's probably true. At least not in the hands of inexperienced and idealized, young 'wanabe' writers. This is why the academic portion of said course is leaving a bitter aftetaste I think. Is the destiny of the aspiring writer to never exceed the limited boundaries of their peers or mentors? If the jaded cynics before you could not excel beyond their own dreams and ambitions, does that mean we ourselves must prepare for the worst and accept the crushingly pessimistic present as our anonymously written near future? Is there a difference between cynicism and being realistic?

I don't do this for fun. I do it because its the only thing between me and spiralling into the mundane depression of everyday life. Writing keeps me relatively sane, and gives me hope that I will not live out my years in anonymity, filing papers and nursing paper cuts, advising customers on the softest type of toilet tissue paper or scanning numerical barcodes until my brain falls out of my ass. Writing releases me into my sacred imagination where I create my own reality that others may experience without having to compromise on their own. It's a fluid process, and yes, no matter what I write, I understand it will get rewritten, by me or by other countless people, but it's the journey of that process which no matter how painful, is the only journey I want to take. But I don't want to invest all this time, energy, money and creativity into three years just to work on "Emmerdale." Had this course been advertised as it is in reality, it would be called SCRIPTWIRITNG FOR TV. Film is only relevant in the cleverly marketed name of said course. We are tempted and lured in by the film focused first year, before being deflated and let in on the mission statement a lot later. It's like Tom Cruise in The Firm. Let the dude live it up in style, dig in, soak up the sun, then tell him its all under the thumb and at the whim of the mafia when he's at his most comfortable.

So, as for this narrative business? Yeah, I wanna get charged up with the learning but my brain doesn't absorb stuff like it used to and I'm getting worried. I won’t deny my understanding of screenwriting is of a competent standard (even after ten dedicated years I have much to improve on), and that I revile the essay process like it was a cancerous growth on my penis, but I feel constrained, disillusioned and betrayed in many ways by my own lack of personal commitment.

I like to inject personality into my work. With essays, you must concede to this lethargic instruction manual mentality where as a writer you are asked to castrate yourself and be just like any other academic student. Should the rules not be different for our course? Is the marriage of the academic and the creative too much a contrast of opposites to one another? Like here I could discuss "Heroes," as I intended and waffle on about how the narrative in the first few minutes uses montage and music to reflect on the last season's underwhelming events while subtly foreboding what is to come. Narrative is simply a structured series of events that are determined through the nature of cause and effect, or the consequences of action (or inaction). Narrative also informs not only the structure, but thematic points and subtext built into the material, which can be determined by genre, culture, history, or even socio-political standing. Is that an adequate summary? If that represents my basic grasp of narrative, and if it is indeed correct, does that mean I need to prove further that I can dissect a piece of 'art' to evidence this? Is that what these essays ultimately are for? Evidence of understanding? The pending essay is making me shit bricks. I wish I could write about something that I can invest with passion, though still abiding by the confines of this narrative unit's needs. Is that naive of me? Am I that idealized 'wanabe' writer I mentioned earlier?

If I decide to go my own way, I fail in the eyes of my peers, but I retain my own creative integrity, at least on the most personal level. But then I prove that I have thrown money at something that I do not truly believe in nor want to follow, and for all I know my lack of investment led to my own disillusionment, and it was nothing to do with the course itself. I don't like to do things I feel to be unnecessary, unrelated or superfluous in conception and execution. I could analyse a film until the cows came home, put their feet up on the table, smoked cigars, watched 'Oprah,' and commenced an orgy in the barn, but will that help me to become a better scriptwriter? I would love to write a thesis on something I truly love (whatever the aspect), and would give myself over completely to the process, if I could only maintain my own voice. I get the message that writing will ultimately be all about selling-out (an inevitability of the industry), watering your ideas down and then whoring them out, suffocating creativity and settling for what is convenient. I am to compromise and neuter myself in every way until all I am is exactly what I was striving to avoid becoming - another anonymous face in a crowd, where my own, unique voice is drowned out in a cacophony of murmurs and mumbles. The struggle is to either be the academic achiever (who can learn and consume the information handed to them, then apply it to their work) or the creative mind (the writer who invests all their time into producing the 'art' and nothing else).

Narrative is the last thing on my mind I am afraid, when it should be a priority. But I digress. In the end, I will do what is asked of me, and whether I succeed or fail, I guess it's all up to me in the end anyway. Independent learning really means to learn alone. I just wish I knew whether I was the idealist 'wanabe' or the jaded cynic. And which one would make me the better writer.

The problem with universities teaching Screenwriting...

…is you cannot really teach it, but only impart personal advice and explain the rules of the writing game that should be adhered to in order to be successful.

If this blog were a script, then picture this as the halfway twist in the tale where you suddenly discover what is really going on. At the beginning of this superfluous waffle in complete and utter bullshit I failed to establish the reasons for what this story (or blog) was really attempting to do. So either this is the twist that changes your perception of events, or simply poor storytelling on my part. Or both.

The purpose of this blog is purely for the work effort side of university, so the extreme lack of assignments on the screenwriting course can be justified through throwing in rather tenuous links to general media theory and mandatory random side orders such as this little pain in the ass. So I must address the concerns of such work on this blog today.

The first assignment consisted of a six minute script to be partnered with an essay analysing the images within the screenplay. This is to be expected from a course that marries two contrasting elements of this particular educational experience; creative free thinking and automated, analytical academia. I understand the academic essay writing makes this a course that acts beyond being a simply extended Robert McKee lecture, but like these blogs, we are ordained by the course tutor powers-that-be to keep, I find the whole academic part of the experience incredibly repellent.

The problems I have with this started right from the off. Regardless of a convincing surplus of experienced and approachable lecturers (all whom are exceptionally good and engaging in what they do), the assignment brief for this essay was vague and simply no one on the job could flat out explain what needed to be considered when writing it. Not a single fellow scriptwriter on this course understood just what in the hell they were supposed to be writing about and continued to curse a fast approaching deadline with total frustration and complete fear o failure.

I even saw a smattering of people banging out their first drafts in the library the night before the essay was due in!! People were so unprepared, uninformed and universally bewildered by the details required they left it up to last minute pressures to force their hands (to write something). Now, I am happy with the course's actual content and the respective teaching styles, but the lack of hours and the disturbing lack of information regarding the academic side of our work is inducing schizoid embolisms in more than a few of us. We get told one thing by one lecturer only for that to be undermined later by another. Scriptwriting is a creatively fluid process that is an art form because there are soooo many elements needed to construct a script to a professional standard that you cannot simply put pen to paper, or fingertip to key, because an enormous amount of planning must go into creating and giving birth to an idea. This is what they teach, and that is what we are there to learn. But where are the essay breakdown lectures?

Another gripe is that the lack of collective agreement in marking someone's work on a purely subjective basis does not for a good grade make. For instance a friend of mine on the course was told by one lecturer his script was perfect and not to change a thing, but because another lecturer wound up marking his work, he received a frankly shit grade. He was needless to say very pissed off, and for a guy who is very dead-set on riding out the full three years, turned out to be disheartened so much by this final mark, he let slip that he is considering dropping out if his next script does not achieve an above-average-grade. The disjointed nature of our timetable has brought up many questions about whether or not significant changes need to be implemented in order to improve the quantity of seminars during a week. Yes, we understand this is independent learning, but for pity's sake, if we wanted to be entirely independent and educate ourselves on this medium then we would have saved our twenty grand debt and fucking did that!! The fact is, we want exposition just as if we were living inside one of our own scripts and like any good script the exposition needs to be clear and concise so that NO MEMEBERS OF THE AUDIENCE FAIL TO FOLLOW THE REST OF THE STORY!! Some characters are close to being written out of this story if you get my analogy.

Other than my fuming anger towards the baffling lack of time spent in actual lectures and seminars, the confusing subjective nature of the marking, and the ridiculous lack of CLEAR explanation on these (to be honest) redundant academic companion pieces to our scripts, I am enjoying the experience and the people. My essay came out at 57% and my six minute script hit the 68% mark, and I was happy to see that I had constructive criticism attached with them upon their return, plus a validation of the knowledge I already harboured that I have much to improve upon in the realm of character development, and that my research must be a helluva lot stronger in order to attain much more worthy grades. I am sure that my complaints are shared by many, if not all, of the students enrolled onto this course. We are enjoying it for the most part, and respect the advice and decisions of the lecturers the best we can, but I really would like to see something done about my above concerns, and the answer, “well, this is independent learning,” is not fucking good enough for apparently the best course in the country for screenwriting. Let’s get something done. Amen, and goodnight.

Tony Almeida

I'm going geek speak now.

Last night I came home to find a message for me on Facebook regarding a trailer for the new series of 24. Now, people who watch will be familiar with this, as for the people who don't, well, you should be watching - there are no excuses.

Tony Almeida played by Carlos Bernard started life on 24 as a bit of an asshole type character. Him and Jack Bauer played by Kiefer Sutherland did not get on at all,
A) because they had both porked the same co-worker (not each other)
B) because they were both alpha males
C) because Jack broke the rules while Tony followed them
During the course of Day One, Tony grew to identify with and help assist Jack Bauer, and by the time Day Two hit, they had grown to respect each other. By Day Three they were friends, by Day Four they were best friends, and then by Day Five Tony was abruptly killed in a halfway point episode that shocked a legion of 24 fans.

I myself was relatively expecting his demise, since they had killed off everyone else from previous seasons. He dies in Jack's arms, in an unspoken moment of homoerotic love, and as Jack breaks down into tears, Tony slips away into the unknown. Now... two years and one and a half seasons later, Tony returns to 24. How? Nobody knows. Half the people who believed he was still alive have now been vindicated after so much lambasting from those who believed he was dead. A trailer online finally validates the theory that he never died and now Tony is back... as a villain by the looks of it. The 24 writers always start their seasons strong, but unfortunately right around the halfway mark everything falls apart, so here's hoping the return of Almeida will deliver the required thrills and spills.

I was so fucking shocked and surprised, it felt like I was in a really bizarre wet-dream. I woke up today and had to double check that it really happened. It did. I am happy. I am very excited. I think this should go a long way to making up for some terrible decisions made in the latter half of Season 6. Tony has always been one of the best characters, and now he gets a rebirth in one of the most exciting tv shows on American television.

I told you it was gonna get geeky.

UPDATED EDIT: The writer's strike pushed back 24 season seven's airing by like a whole year. Bummer.

The End of a Chapter titled : The Tripod

Starting university is very much a daunting prospect, especially for a guy who has been out of education for the last four years of his rambling, know-nothing life. Its about finding focus and direction and preparing to become 'an expert' in your chosen field of study. It is about starting a new chapter in your life, and finding the means in which to carry on. Along the way you make new friends and forge new relationships amongst your fellow students, but it can never erase the memories of the friends you left behind.

I remember a very special group of people I knew. They were all different, all talented in their individual ways, each with a quirky humour that made them likeable to each other and a keen intelligence that gave them vast adaptability within social networks and circles. Together we seemed to live in a bubble for a temporary time, like the kids in "Stand By Me," we all had our own demons, our own dreams and our own flaws, but when we were together for a while it felt like nothing could hold us back. The warmth of our circle attracted others who saw, who could feel, the bond that had birthed between us. We began as a two, then grew to a three, but it was only when we drew a fourth member it felt complete.

I think of these friends often, where they are in their lives now, who they were when I first met them, their moments of doubt, their moments of pain, especially the times when I was not there for them. Friendship is not about what you owe to one another, it is about what you give, no strings attached. If I could go back and be there in their times of need and hurt I wouldn't even hesitate because they were there for me. Today, there are moments when I feel lost without their advice. Lost without their support. Lost without their camaraderie. Through all our petty squabbling that went on over the years, the moments we all thought, "Man, we will never come back from this," and all the heated, embittered animosities bred of our own weaknesses and jealousies, all of that bad shit just mended itself, you know? I remember so much the laughter. Sometimes the laughing would just overwhelm every conversation we would have. Like it was healing old wounds, like it regenerated that friendship time after time. Even when in the times gone by we would sometimes feel like strangers after not having seen each other for a while, give us ten minutes and we would remember why we considered ourselves good friends.

In 2006, to me, it felt like one of the greatest years of my life. These guys were the glue that held me together through some dark times in my life, although they never really knew it, and all the laughter and jokes, and all the conversations that lasted until sunrise made me feel like I belonged to something very rare, and very special. It was the time of my life when everything seemed to boil down to friendship, even though we had known each other for years, that year we just clicked. We were there for each other, sometimes when no one else was there for us. We could be geeks and freaks and never have to apologise for it. We could be rude and obnoxious and always be forgiven. We could talk expressively about our weakest moments and our deepest dreams and never be laughed at.

Yes, the friends you make in university are supposed to be the ones that last your whole life, but the friends that I made, the friends that I will always remember were the ones who were there to make life easier when it got hard, and while everything else in the world seemed to be going to shit, just a phone call away were the people who mattered most. They were my friends. The greatest I have ever had, and I only realise looking back in retrospect. Our paths will split, and we will move on in our lives, but I know those guys will always have the warmest place in my heart, and the most thoughtful place in my memories. They saved my life in every possible way over the years, and I owe them a great deal of the strength I have obtained over that time.

University is a new chapter, but I will never close the book on the previous one. Here's to George, Yoni and Trishul, the TRIPOD that held me up.

Student Blogging and the End of the World

In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth...

Jump ahead past all the other superfluous bullshit and we come to me at university tasked with creating and maintaining a blog. Which of course is on my list of things to do. I have so far been slightly ill at ease about the idea of doing this because ultimately in the end everything we are preparing and learning for, all the hours invested at the library studying, all the social networking and browsing of potential contacts, all the lectures, seminars and discussions are ultimately for nothing, because according to the Revelations Chapter in the bible, we won't live to really put any of this stuff to use, so I am going to sit back and wait for the whole shitstorm to commence. But because I was a boyscout a long time ago, I still live by our motto "Be prepared," so I will continue this blog just in case the fire and brimstone doesn't rein down upon us this year or the next.

But imagine this people, how annoyed would students be if they finished a 3-4 year course, worked damn hard, invested blood, sweat and tears into their work and upon their graduation day God finally decided to pull his finger out of his infinite arsehole and end mankind. How pissed off would you be? Like you could have saved us the trouble and done this a few years ago God. That dude is just bang out of order sometimes.

To Begin With...

I am not a techno-literate human being. It took me fifteen minutes just to figure out how to turn on my first computer when I was thirteen years old. I was anticipating this revolutionary upgrade of our low-tech family home with baited breath. It is possible I may have even jerked off to the thought the night before.

A TV-like box including a keyboard and mouse attached that could connect and navigate through a vast stretching web of infinite possibilities with endless communication capabilities. All thanks to some fragile circuitry boards and rivers of wires fused together I would finally comprehend the digital world that so many had already grown-up with and become experts on.

Imagine my surprise when the dusty, 80's designed monitor and second hand hard-drive were set down on my rickety retractable desk top. I mean the 'thing' was a relic back when the Berlin Wall came down. But ever the optimist back then, I figured; "What the hell? Its still a computer."

First, to turn the fucker on. The 'event' consisted of much fumbling, pressing and jamming of fingers, arranging nests of intertwined cables to suit their respective sockets; a rather clumsy affair that could be likened to one losing their virginity, or so to speak. This of course being a technological sort of devirginizing. At once exciting, painful, sweaty, humiliating, but ultimately very disappointing. The thing finally beeped on and made a few click noises only to come up with an already out dated Windows 95 program. Plus as I discovered days later, it was also incapable of connecting to the Internet, and incompatible with my brand spanking new printer. It was an obsolete piece of machinery for a technophobic teenager. A match made in hell. But we made it work. As the years went by we became inseparable. Thick as thieves, it's Laurel to my Hardy, peas in a fucking pod you might say. The day it finally died a piece of me died with it. It was buried next to my two deceased budgies in the car park under a brush of trees with a homemade cross piercing the top soil to signify its passing. I still go back to visit it sometimes, paying my respects to a bygone era, shedding tears over the times and files we shared.

Fast forward a decade later and here I am typing furiously away on my 'Acer Laptop' on a version of 'Windows XP.' An expert in computer seduction and mastery. My fingers engaging in its software complexities like that of a smooth player expertly flicking open the padlock on the back of a woman's bra. However, I am still questioning the nature of a 'blog' and what its purpose is. So, I'm gonna wing it here and assume my surplus of self absorbed, cynical and deconstructive ramblings will act as a nice preamble to my my very thick line in bullshit.

My name is Louis, and with God willing this will be my blog home for some time to come.