Where we are, PI book of ants, final expositions

Rewrote the treatment with the VO text, revised bird scene and a short, easy transition scene. I like the VO a lot. It makes things easier and smoother. I feel right at home pounding it out. The film is a funny beast. There's a standard dramatic structure underneath it all. But it's a little opaque. You know something is happening and that it makes sense, but you can't follow it in the normal sense of following a movie. The protagonist's motives are unclear. He doesn't really have any. I like that aspect of it. That's the kind of character I wanted to write. He doesn't "want" or "need" anything in the traditional film sense of the word. He is equally passive as he is active. He sort of flows from scene to scene. At the same time, there is some underlying dramatic momentum. I was thinking the other day that you have to split paragraphs. In other words, rather than writing in the traditional "topic sentence/one idea" way, you have to split each scene so it starts in the middle of a paragaph and ends in the middle of the next. So every scene is ending with some sort of cliffhanger. Curiously I was looking at a book at Border's yesterday that had the same strategy diagrammed out. I think it's called Writing for Animation.

Here's a summary of where we are...

Drama... I like having a dramatic structure under there, a sense of momentum, the call/response structure we developed

Voice Over... In traditional terms, VO is bad because it narrates--tells instead of shows. I like using it to help define the structure. It just seems natural to me.

Motivations/purpose... I like the ambiguity of the character's needs and desires. It seems like a big part of what makes this interesting to me is the ability to define a character in this way... the character doesn't have a backstory or a history or quirks or embellishments. He just more or less exists.

Sequence.... I like the way the events are structured. To me it's truthful and makes sense. Ben's responses and actions make sense. But it's not always dramatically apparent what's going on. I guess I don't think it matters.

Gadgets and techniques... What I don't like I realize is when gadgets are used as a formula to achieve a (usually emotional) result. Like here's the sad music so you feel sad. It's more of a direction thing than a writing thing.

FX...I suspect that one of the reasons why Hollywood films have in-your-face effects is because the effect has to work. It has to register. If your effect is overly subtle then the point doesn't come across. When money is on the line you have to make your point. I realize that I try to direct things like a visual artist. So I'm thinking... in this scene, we can barely see the bird, more like a shadow of the bird. What is it? Is it a bird? I spend all my time finessing this kind of stuff. The performance is in these visual details and not so much in the "acting." This kind of approach virtually demands the iterative methodology we're using. You can't do this in a major feature because of the way they're put together. Those films are designed around the performers and the events.

Stripping down/building up...I just watched the previs again. It's cut down so much that it seems to go too fast. So now we can put in some nice long shots... images to give the viewers time to digest... images to stretch out the feeling of time. It is a good feeling to think that everything is stripped down to the point where we can start fleshing it out.

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PI

I think the film has a kind of PI vibe... voice over, conspiracy, weird machines. I'm amazed no one told me, "You have to watch it!" Did you know there's a comic book version of the movie? It looks like a Chic comic. You can see some pages here. It's interesting because I was thinking of making a comic book too (albeit a super-abstract one). Interestingly, I didn't really like PI all that much. If you were thinking of getting PI: the Guerilla Diaries, don't unless you're a super-fan. It's mostly a bunch of notes.

The Illusionist

You recall I'm always a little embarassed by the way our film depends so heavily on the final exposition. So I'm making a collection of over-the-top final expositions to make myself feel better. The Illusionist scores a top spot here along with Sleepy Hollow. I wonder how Neil Burger directed Paul Giamatti in that scene? What exactly do you tell someone to do? Think.... remember... now think again, but this time remembering...