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#Post#: 35490--------------------------------------------------
Pre-writes, re-writes, and de-writes aka playing with other peop
le's stuff
By: Neumatic Date: September 6, 2015, 9:08 pm
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Considering Chip has been thinking about playing around with
flicks like Tron: Legacy and Sucker Punch, and given that I've
always enjoyed doing that kind of thing, and that it's not an
often-discussed way of writing, I thought it would behoove us to
have a thread dedicated to that.
There are a couple things to bear in mind about this approach:
* This isn't a direct path to anything. Remember the line from
Halt And Catch Fire: "it's not the thing, it's the thing that
leads us TO the thing." I personally approach this as writing
for the trashcan, a way to analyze what I like, see what works
and what doesn't, and what I can learn.
* The idea of "fixing something" is pretty arrogant. Instead,
the mentality should be experimentation. "What would happen if
I did this?" "What if I put this character from this movie into
another movie?" That sort of thing. The objective isn't to
fix, it's to play.
So with that in mind, I figure this thread would be a nice place
to shoot the breeze about this sort of thing, not just what
we're working on, but our approaches, what we might want to play
with and why, why we do it, that sort of thing.
I'll tell you what started this for me: When I was a kid living
in Italy, one of the only shows on was Power Rangers. Well, I
remember figuring out the whole dual-nature of that show, how
half of it was a whole different show from Japan, and that
inspired my imagination, wondering what I wasn't seeing. Then,
when I started getting online, I discovered that the Japanese
show always aired a whole year before the American show, so I
would see these scans of Japanese magazines featuring new
outfits, creatures, robots, etc... early 90s JPG quality, and if
I was very lucky, a clip or two on RealPlayer. Low-resolution
text in a language I couldn't understand if I could even see
it... well, it gave me a year to try and figure out what I
thought it would be.
And when I got exposed to more things, like books I wanted to
read or trailers for movies I wanted to see (remember how long
it took for a movie to come out when you were young?), my mind
started playing with those too.
Of course, back then I wasn't a particularly skillful writer,
and I was barely an artist, so the extent of what I could do
with all that was limited. I guess that's why that instinct
went away.
Ironically, I think what brought me back was Power Rangers. A
couple of years ago Disney cancelled the series and it looked
like that might have been the end for the show. And I saw the
amazing designs that would have gone to waste and started
thinking "okay, if I had to bring the show back, what would I
do? What would I want to see? How could I please old and new
audiences? What are the flaws in the show and how could I fix
them? What current shows have the mood and style that I'd like
to see, and how could I recreate that without ripping them off?"
etc. I played around with it, had some interesting ideas (as
well as a couple brand-new original all-my-own "parts" that I
can insert into other projects... and doing this taught me how
to effectively use Scrivener without sacrificing a "worthy"
project to that cause (I always want a "sacrifice" project when
you're trying something new, because developing a workflow
always comes with snags and hang-ups.
There's an approach to writing I heard about and love called
"writing for the trashcan," songwriters do it a lot, the idea is
just to write something, maybe it's useful, maybe it's not, but
you just have to keep doing it. Doing de-writes and mash-ups
has allowed me to design a modular workflow meaning for whatever
I create, I can see all the parts that went into something, and
if a project fails, I can just take out the parts I want and
insert them somewhere else.
#Post#: 35492--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pre-writes, re-writes, and de-writes aka playing with other
people's stuff
By: Chiprocks1 Date: September 7, 2015, 12:18 am
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I already love this thread! I have heard you use the term
'writing for the trashcan' numerous times and I knew exactly
what it meant. I may never thought of it in that way with
regards to "re-writing" movies or TV shows before on a personal
level, but the end result was always the same for me. I love to
write. When I'm not on here posting, I'm writing because I enjoy
the process more than anything. When it comes to taking
characters from movies and doing my own take on them, it has
never been with the idea that I could write better than what was
on the screen. It's always been about figuring out what kind of
story I want to tell and then seeing it through to the end, good
and bad. It's the process for me that I thrive on and taking
characters or plots or whatever from whichever medium helps keep
me writing and more importantly curtailing the dreaded writers
block we all run into. Usually while I'm working on known
characters from films and TV, I'm also working through my own
original stories and it does help me with make big breakthroughs
by shifting my focus elsewhere so I'm not obsessing on "what to
do here and what to do there", if that makes sense. Really glad
you started this thread Neumatic. :) I look forward to
contributing to it as much as possible.
#Post#: 35493--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pre-writes, re-writes, and de-writes aka playing with other
people's stuff
By: Chiprocks1 Date: September 7, 2015, 12:30 am
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I forgot to mention in the last post an Example of re-writes I
use to do all the time. When Curb Your Enthusiasm was regular TV
viewing for me, I would just write endless amounts of dialogue
and scenes with Larry in mind, using his voice in my head. I was
beyond thrilled with the stuff that I was coming up without
really even trying. This isn't me bragging, but more about
pointing out that your characters and the story will write
itself when you 'let go'. I always heard this from people like
Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino and this was one of those
moments where I really just let go and went with it, letting the
characters take me on a journey, rather than me trying to guide
them where I wanted them to go. I need to find my backup files
with them on it. I still have a few lines of dialogue and scenes
in my head that I wrote years ago that still make me smile when
I think about them. These kind of moments are what I like to
call "lightning in a bottle" moments because you know that while
you're writing this stuff as it happens, you know it's damn good
and can't believe your dumb luck of what's pouring out of you
onto the computer. Man, I really hope I can find them. I think I
saved them either on those floppy discs as well as filling up a
couple of CD's worth of stuff.
#Post#: 35494--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pre-writes, re-writes, and de-writes aka playing with other
people's stuff
By: Neumatic Date: September 7, 2015, 12:42 am
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I am such a parrot, I can remember when House was on TV, I would
be stuck in his cadence for about half an hour after the show
ended. I've always been impressed by people who can do
impressions and while I can only do a couple, I've gotten real
good at capturing voices on paper. When I really get into it,
I've got the mannerisms and so on going on, I match their
physicality and I'd like to think that physicality translates
onto the page.
This is why I tend to "cast" my ideas when I'm creating them,
not just so I can picture them in my head but also so when I
come up with a scene, the characters can just start talking.
It's such a great feeling when the scene just starts taking off
on its own and you're just sitting there transcribing. It CAN
cause the scene to go off into side paths if you're not
careful... this is why I like to improv in the conceptual stage
where anything can happen, not on the final page.
The casting thing is a double-edged sword, my "stripper" project
(which unintentionally became my "sacrifice" since I'm
re-learning how to re-write), I was never able to cast the right
part for the lead's nemesis, and that's really keeping the whole
thing from gelling together.
#Post#: 35497--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pre-writes, re-writes, and de-writes aka playing with other
people's stuff
By: Neumatic Date: September 7, 2015, 2:02 am
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I bring up "parts" movies quite a bit, though I feel the need to
clear the air: I've never been that good at playing with other
people's stuff. I was never good at fanfiction because.. .well,
first I wasn't great at capturing voices and moods yet, but also
because I would keep experimenting with everything in there,
"why does it have to be this way?"
Anything I like, I don't like the "file the serial numbers off"
approach... I hate it when I see it as a viewer, so why would I
engage in that sort of thing as a writer? Anything I like, I
try to figure out why I like it, why it works, what doesn't
work... it doesn't matter if it's a character, a location, a
design style, whatever, I try to boil it down to an energy...
turn it into water. I've always like Bruce Lee's "be water"
approach to martial arts, I try to do that as a creative... lose
the details, find the soul of the thing, and find a place to use
it. Elegant and simple.
I'm really glad that I learned how to draw. I remember back in
the day I was copying styles, I had my own rudimentary style,
but started to mimic others: Kia Asamiya and Moebius, mostly...
but they were night and day. I never became a truly good artist
until I understood what I liked and turned it into energy, now
all that art that inspired me is a natural part of my own style
(of course, it also helps that I started drawing for the
trashcan as well). So having a visual understanding of it made
it easier to approach writing the same way.
But let's boil the drawing analogy down even simpler: when I was
learning to draw, I would trace sometimes. Papers to window, or
later on, a clear clipboard with a flashlight cradled between my
legs. Poor man's lightbox. But everyone who's traced a picture
knows what happens: the traced element doesn't fit in with any
of the modifications or additions you do add. Using an actual
element from somewhere else would have the same result, and
you're a fool if you think otherwise. This is why you gotta
break it down, find the core, and turn it into energy.
#Post#: 35546--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pre-writes, re-writes, and de-writes aka playing with other
people's stuff
By: Neumatic Date: September 13, 2015, 2:48 pm
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Gentlemen, I give you the Remastered version of Everything is a
Remix
HTML https://t.co/piGtXvIZ2y
by Kirby Ferguson. Enjoy.
#Post#: 35548--------------------------------------------------
Re: Pre-writes, re-writes, and de-writes aka playing with other
people's stuff
By: Chiprocks1 Date: September 13, 2015, 6:46 pm
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Sending that video to my Roku now.....
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