QandA

Challenge results

July 23, 2009 Challenge, Follow Up, Genres

[Scene Challenge] Oh, so that’s why I don’t do these more often.

There were 145 entries for the Superheroic Scene Challenge, and some of them were looooong. Printed out, they totaled 406 pages. Going side-by-side shrunk it to a still-ridiculous 203.

My assistant Matt and I read every one. We have a lot of honorable mentions.

Favorite hero names include Trilobyte, Mighty Mandi, The Level, Harico Ver, and The Endurist.

I enjoyed seeing the wide range of possible interpretations on villain Brickhouse. Given the name, there were a slew of German/Austrian variants, but it was nice to see the occasional Victorian spin, the blaxpoitation vixen, and the villain who could become the entire building. (Appropriately, his nemesis was Breckin Wall, a.k.a. Wreckin’ Ball.)

The challenge was to write an action scene, so I couldn’t give the gold medal to entries that were more talk than walk. But I enjoyed the non-action of this diner conversation, this con game, and this riff on nanotechnology and bio-bots.

And you can’t get more non-action than an excellent Buddhist superhero.

Finally, there were some that made the short list. Nima (he made Scrippets!) combined robots with a Buffy-esque heroine. The Divide combined robots with golems. Chip Street kept the action tight, as did Bill K.. Ryan Jackson explored the implications of Dora’s magic backpack, while DougJ went the teddy bear route.

The winner actually came quite early in the stack: #7 by Spenturion, in which hero Azure battles Brickhouse while coaching a group of pre-teens in proper quips. It’s light on action, but keeps a nice tempo. And it’s short, which is no small victory.

EXT. CITY MUSEUM OF UBIQUITIES – NIGHT

Our hero, AZURE stands patiently waiting on the large marble front steps. Dressed in bright blue body kevlar and donning a pair of goggles on his head.

Around him stand three boys ages 9-13: a FAT BOY, a SHORT BOY and a NERDY BOY. They are all wearing matching blue t-shirts, and a cheap knock-off goggles.

AZURE

All right. Brickhouse is going to be coming through that door at any moment.

Right on cue, CRASH!

BRICKHOUSE comes tumbling through a solid brick wall, about 15 yards from the door. He stands tall, at about eight feet and built like his namesake implies.

He’s carrying a golden jeweled STAFF in his right hand. It looks like a pencil proportionately.

AZURE (CONT’D)

Remember what we talked about?

FAT BOY

Open the fight with witty banter.

AZURE

That’s right. Ok, I’ll take him on, you guys do like we practiced.

Brickhouse lets out a deep bellied laugh, and begins to run toward the group. He runs like a toddler, throwing his weight in to it with no fear, ready to topple at any moment.

BRICKHOUSE

Azure? God you’ve let yourself go. You a camp counselor?

Azure takes off running towards the man, at an impossible speed.

SHORT BOY

(overconfident)

That’s what she said.

Azure takes a flying leap, landing on the oaf’s back. He grips Brickhouse by the hair and begins PUNCHING him in the face.

AZURE

(between punches)

That’s not really so much banter... more importantly it didn’t make sense.

BRICKHOUSE

Get off of me!

Brickhouse tries to swat him away like a fly, all the while still barrelling towards the group of boys. Azure covers Brickhouse’s eyes.

FAT BOY

You’re momma’s so fat--

The short boy stops mid sentence as Brickhouse TRIPS, launching himself and Azure along with him, in to the air.

What follows is nothing short of beautiful: 600 pounds of muscle hits the ground, hard, tearing through the marble of the steps like tissue.

Azure rides the man like a surfboard.

They end up too close for comfort for the costumed boys, who all take a few steps back.

AZURE

We went over this!

Brickhouse struggles as he’s pinned down.

SHORT BOY

The bigger they are--

AZURE

(scolding)

Don’t even finish that...

BRICKHOUSE

(holds up staff)

Do you know what this is? I’ve got the Staff of Ptelomy! Do you know how long I’ve waited to get my hands on this staff?

SHORT BOY

That’s what she said!

AZURE

Better! Still not what I’m after.

BRICKHOUSE

How do you put up with this?

FAT BOY

You better put up or shut up!

AZURE

Again, not making sense.

The Nerdy boy begins to speak up, but cuts himself short and takes a step back.

Azure catches this and makes direct eye contact, punching Brickhouse instinctually.

AZURE (CONT’D)

Come on... you can do it. Can’t be much worse than what we’ve had so far.

NERDY

When we’re done with you, they’ll call you Pile-of-bricks.

AZURE

Finally.

WHACK! Azure lands a final heavy punch.

Brickhouse is beyond limp.

Azure grabs Brickhouse and THROWS him in to a nearby lightpole.

The metal pole bends around his weight and collapses. Azure approaches, takes the bar and wraps it around Brickhouse’s body, forming an impromptu straight jacket.

Red and blue lights flash as tires screech to a halt nearby.

Out of the eyesight from the children, Azure drops his heroic facade and lights up a cigarette.

BRICKHOUSE

What a bunch of wash-ups. How’d you get stuck training wannabes?

AZURE

Court ordered. I might have destroyed an orphanage fighting Gigantathorn.

BRICKHOUSE

I hate orphans.

Congrats to Spenturion, and to all the entrants for making the Best Challenge Ever. The next one will be limited to three sentences.

Playing to the core

July 15, 2009 Film Industry, Genres, Prince of Persia

Brian Lowry cautions against taking Comic-Con buzz too seriously:

Surrounded by ardent fans, it’s easy to get sucked into Comic-Con’s vortex of enthusiasm, forgetting that even with 120,000 people descending on the convention center, that’s still a very, very self-selected group.

The same thing happens at Sundance: films that get a rapturous response in Park City often underwhelm at lower altitudes. Everything plays better to a hungry crowd, particularly one that has trekked a long way just to see what you’ve got.

But that’s not a reason to avoid either festival. If you can’t play to the base, you’re unlikely to push beyond it, either. A movie like Iron Man wants its geek bona fides before pushing further towards the mainstream. Where it gets trickier is a show like Pushing Daisies. Winning a small, ardent fan base can be self-limiting, particularly if it sets you off as a niche program out of the gate.

None of my projects are directly featured this year, though Jordan Mechner will be on a panel about his Prince of Persia graphic novel — a prequel to the movie — and Tim Burton will inevitably get questions about our next two movies.

Now that’s a gunfight

July 14, 2009 Genres, Words on the page

I’m busy working on Preacher, and it’s no spoiler to say that it features a gunfight or two. Last night, I twittered to ask what people’s favorite gunfights were, Western or otherwise.

I got a lot of replies, but one name that kept coming up was Michael Mann. He consistently finds ways to send thousands of bullets flying while acknowledging the rules of physics. ((I have nothing against impossible gunfights like in The Matrix, Equilibrium or Wanted, but I’m trying to keep to keep this one a bit more grounded.))

I haven’t seen Public Enemies yet, but this clip shows the feeling he creates:

But when you’re talking about Michael Mann gunfights, you really have to discuss Heat. Here’s the showstopper:

I looked up Mann’s screenplay for Heat, to see what that looked like on the page.

Mann uses a lot of sluglines and short sentences to create the tempo of the fight. It’s chaos, and that’s reflected in the writing. He’s inconsistent with scene headers, and not especially concerned with establishing geography.

It doesn’t matter: action writing needs to create the feeling of an action sequence, not choreograph each bullet.

Bosko’s moving 90 degrees to the right, crossing the street. There would be no, there was no, and there never is any, warning. Neil Hanna and Schwartz with 12- gauges OPEN FIRE. World War III ERUPTS. Now we hear distant POLICE SIRENS.

CHRIS

is hit in the neck.

NEIL’S

FIRING 3-SHOT BURSTS that blow up Schwartz and a lamppost and hit a woman who falls over her shopping cart, shrieking. Hanna’s behind the lamppost.

BOSKO

across the street with his AR-180, opens up on the station wagon which takes HITS. A BLACK AND WHITE slides sideways and COP #1 with a shotgun runs across the street hollering at kids who stop and stare and drop school books.

COP # 1

Drop! Drop down!

CERRITO

over the station wagon roof FIRES a BURST at Bosko, then swings onto Cop #1 and fires, killing him. Cerrito jumps into the wagon.

THE STREET – WIDE: A BUS

The driver panics and slams on his brakes and his bus full of people stalls in the combat zone between Bosko and the wagon.

BOSKO (O.S.)

(screams)

Get the bus out of here...

NEIL

shielded by the green bag of money which has taken hits, FIRES at Hanna and backs to Chris.

HANNA

pulls Schwartz to cover.

CHRIS

dazed – holding his bleeding neck while Neil FIRES into the parking lot...

PARKING LOT

...hitting Casals getting out of his car. Casals sits down as if stunned.

MAN

pulling his car out of the lot ducks behind the wheel and crashes it into a parked car.

EXT. BANK – CERRITO

CERRITO

(to Neil)

C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!

Neil can’t rake it through the incoming FIRE from Hanna and Cop #2 to the station wagon and Cerrito and knows it.

NEIL

(to Breedan and Cerrito)

Go!! Go!!

ON STATION WAGON

Breedan floors it.

HANNA

re-emerges, kneels and PUMPS SHOTS into the station wagon.

BOSKO

rounds the bus with the AR-180 and OPENS UP

STATION WAGON

draws everyone’s FIRE. Breedan ducks and pilots it through the gauntlet.

NEIL

has taken off down the sidewalk, supporting Chris. TIGHTEN. He runs in among crowds of civilians. He knocks over a man, breaks through. People are screaming, staring, shocked.

INT. STATION WAGON – BREEDAN

getting BLOWN APART by Hanna, Bosko, and Cop #2 falls over the wheel and then is thrown back.

EXT. STREET – STATION WAGON

tires are BLOWN OUT.

It spins across the street on steel rims and crashes sideways into a parked car on the east side of Hawthorne.

INT. STATION WAGON – CERRITO

shot three times, holds his abdomen and bails, returning FIRE. Breedan, like a rag doll is half over into the rear seat and still being hit by more rounds. We HOLD on David Breedan. He’s dead.

CUT TO:

EXT. SIDE STREET – CERRITO

east up a side street past people who stand on their lawns and stare – traumatized.

WIDER

Bosko and Cop #3 chase Cerrito. Cerrito FIRES a long BURST. They can’t fire back because of the people.

CUT TO:

EXT. SAFEWAY – TRACKING NEIL + CHRIS – DAY

and the money – running, skipping and dodging past all manner of pedestrians, newspaper coin boxes, fruit vendors and parking meters. People dodge, scream and fall down. It’s chaos.

TRACKING HANNA

a half block behind, chasing Neil – pushing through the same people.

HANNA

(shouts at pedestrians)

Get down! Get down!

EXT. SAFEWAY PARKING LOT – NEIL + CHRIS

Neil – supporting Chris – throws a lady, who was getting out, back into her Olds Cutlass. He dumps Chris and the money in the back seat and turns on Hanna.

NEIL

extends the collapsible stock braces on the roof for accuracy and FIRES over the roof of other cars and through people at Hanna closing in 5o yards away.

CUT TO:

EXT. SAFEWAY – HANNA + CIVILIANS

who panic. SHOOTING. Windows EXPLODE. A lady holds her ears and shrieks. A newspaper coin box SHATTERS. A man’s bag of groceries explode milk and eggs everywhere. He goes down.

HANNA

doesn’t have a clear shot and drops, dragging people down with him.

NEIL

behind the wheel – burns rubber pulling out of the lot over curbstones and through a fence into the alley.

For another example of scripting a gunfight, I’d point you back to the Alaska pilot. You can see the gunfight here, and read the script in the Library.