The Orange County Screenwriters Association
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Mark Sevi

Mark Sevi

New Material

I put my Stories on here cause I thought it be a new way for Producers and Directors Film Companies to look for fresh material where there are plenty of new talented writers out there.  Hollywood is always saying we're on the look out for new writers, Online is the place to look for new writers cause we're always putting new ideas up for Films with our Screenplays. 

I've a few ideas for a Films and have written Screenplays for some of them.

One is called "Evilman" a Horror Film.

Any Producer and Director can see it on here at anytime this is one I would like to become a Film for the Cinema from me. 

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Web Series

I am working on a collaborative web series, and we are having trouble organizing everyone's ideas. It's a web series with five different stories that intersect (essentially five different series that inhabit the same fictional universe.) I started by simply creating a Google document with chronological timelines for each of the characters, but it seems like the project needs something more detailed or structured than that. We need something that outlines each character's arc, beats for each episode and how each character

intersects. Our writing team lives in Orange County and LA, so we generally collaborate online or by phone during the week, then get together once a week, but so far, keeping track of what everyone is doing during the week has proven to be a challenge. I want to see what the other writers are working on, and be able to know where that draft falls in the timeline.  Is there a better way to do it, rather than just sharing a google document? Is there a good program for this?

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What's up with Hollywood?

 So Hollywood is in a major upheaval, says this article (link)  from the LA Times. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone.

I want to make millions of dollars from all of my blockbuster movies, just I'm sure you all want to make millions of dollars from all of your blockbusters... Okay, maybe it wasn't going to be that easy anyway. But, as aspiring screenplay writers, what do we do? What does this mean for us? What options do we have? I don't know.

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Presto! How to write a screenplay in five minutes.

 

"Presto" is a Pixar short bundled with their feature film "WALL-E" and is available as a DVD bonus on the same title.  It's also available as a separate download from iTunes.

It's a story about a magician, two hats and a rabbit.

It's a brilliant example for beginning screenwriters.  Doug Sweetland and the rest of the folks at Pixar compress quite a bit of story structure into the span of five short minutes.

Here's the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet;

Opening Image:  A theatrical poster featuring a magician.

Set Up:  A magician has two hats.  Whatever goes into one, comes out the other and vice versa.  This is how the magician is about to give a performance of the "pulling a rabbit out of a hat" trick.

Theme stated:  You can have the carrot but you have to go through the hat first.

Catalyst:  Show time!  The magician puts the rabbit and one hat off stage then walks on stage with the other hat to bow before the crowd.

Debate:  The rabbit wants the carrot before he's going to do anything.

Break into Two:  Magician thinks he'll just stick his hand in further and pull the rabbit out, but the rabbit decides to fight back.

B Story:  The rabbit loves his carrot!

Fun and Games:  The magician continues to try to pull the rabbit out of the hat, but is confounded by the rabbit with; a mouse trap, an egg, a ventilation shaft, the magician getting his hand slammed in a drawer, the magician poking himself in the eyes, pulling off his own pants and being shot across the stage by a ladder.

Mid-point:  The stakes are raised when he magician tantalizingly holds up the carrot to the rabbit but then appears to destroy the carrot.  To quote Bugs Bunny, "Of course you know, this means war."

The Bad Guys Close In:  The magician is now violent.

All is Lost:   The rabbit resorts to the possibility of death by electrocuting the magician.  Since it's a comedy and a cartoon, the band joins in and the magician ends up dancing.  A chase ensues the magician ends up hanging over the stage, then falling to what may be his death.

Dark Night of the Soul:  The rabbit stops for a moment.  The rabbit realizes he has caused all this and now his master, the person that feeds him, may die.

Break into Three:  The rabbit decides to save the magician.

Finale:  The rabbit places one of the hats in such a way the magician falls through it and into safety.  The audience goes nuts for the performance of a lifetime.  The magician realizes the rabbit saved him and gives the rabbit his carrot.  "This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Final Image:  A theatrical poster featuring the magician and the rabbit.

What's even more instructive is this is all done without so much as a single word of dialog.  Everything is carried in the action.  Want to learn to write action in a screenplay?  Watch this short shot-by-shot and describe each shot in one short sentence.  Note how each shot is a specific and discrete action with a purpose or as a reaction to the previous shot.

A seriously brilliant short.

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I will not read your ****ing script!

 Interesting article.

blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php

I'm not saying I agree with everything said, but it's a data point to consider.

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Thanks!

 Mark & "The Board" --


Thank you all for taking the time to put this event together.

I look forward to the October 31 event and seeing the visualization of the winning script from the contest.

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This site

Hello and welcome to the forums for the Orange County Media Arts Organization.


Please don't abuse these forums.  They are for the most part unmoderated although we do have people looking over the forums to stop flame wars and stupid posts, like spam.


 

Share information, fight over the best movies, but treat each other with respect.

 

Let us know how we're doing. 

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Moonrise Kingdom

From imdb:

Set on an island off the coast of New England in the 1960s, as a young boy and girl fall in love they are moved to run away together. Various factions of the town mobilize to search for them and the town is turned upside down -- which might not be such a bad thing. 

Let me start by admitting that I'm a Wes Anderson fan.  I'll stop short of saying that he can do no wrong, but he hasn't done wrong yet.

Moonrise Kingdom comes close.

Let's agree that Anderson is a genre unto itself and as soon as you see the poster or the trailer or the TV commercial (have their even been any TV commercials?) you probably know if you'll be going to see this movie.

Follow that instict.

This is Wes Anderson's most Wes Anderson-y movie yet.  If you find his work overly precious, this is certainly in that category.

Too conspicuous? Talking about zooms and dolly shots here, folks. This has 'em in spades.  I think the first 10 minutes is all done on track going left, right, in, out.  It was like they had that elevator from Willy Wonka and strapped a camera to it.  Measured dialogue? check!  Universally detached characters? check! 

And perhaps, the fact that I was really aware of the checklist should be a clue that this was a lesser offering.  Maybe it was, I still enjoyed it thouroughly.  I appreciate the entire package of a Wes Anderson film.

Bill Murray's role is a smaller character, less compelling than usual and most of Anderson's stock company do not appear.  Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand and Jason Schwartzman (yes, I looked it up) deliver nuanced but underwhelming performances.  Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel have glorified cameos that only served to draw attention to how little reason there was to have those characters in the film at all, but hey, I'm Wes Anderson and I can just call these people and ask them to come to Rhode Island for a week of Arnold Palmers and those little sandwiches where they cut off the crusts. Bob Balaban is wonderful as the Narrator, and I think the film might've been better with more of him and zero of Tilda and Harvey.  The two young actors, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, deliver strong performances and are, by far, the main characters of the film. However I think that "consistently earnest 12-year-old" will be mistaken for breakout performance.  The gag wore thin quickly. 

Clearly, not a glowing review, but now for the twist, I liked it.

Not that it all works, or that it rises above the sum of the parts.  It doesn't and it doesn't.

Like I said, I'm a fan.  If you aren't a fan, or not anymore, this will do nothing to change your mind.

  

 

"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

Abraham Lincoln

 

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Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass may not be your archetypical blockbuster superhero movie, but don’t think that director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust) is simply doing a goof on the genre--because he’s not fooling around. Kick-Ass is a gleeful deconstruction and reinvention of everything that has gone down before it. All the audacious violence interspersed with coming-of-age protagonists backed by a killer comedic script guarantees that Kick-Ass will be a classic cult hit for the fan boys and girls even if it doesn’t clean up at the box office.

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) had come to terms with his anonymity long ago, but now he’s 16 and his reality has shifted. His hormones are raging, his mother dropped dead of a brain aneurysm during a discussion regarding Count Chocula and he’s wondering if there’s something more to life. He fantasizes about his teacher’s cleavage and ponders why “nobody ever tried to be a superhero.” Dave orders a green wet suit online, transforms from bespectacled comic book geek to his vigilante alter ego Kick-Ass and then quickly finds out why: because it hurts.

Kick-Ass’s first outing ends up with Dave broken and bleeding on a gurney. His back is reinforced with metal plates and his nerve endings are dulled--this is as close as he’s going to get to an actual super power. Kick-Ass is back patrolling the streets as soon as Dave’s released from the hospital and thwarts an attempted mugging before a cheering crowd. His heroics are caught on video, uploaded on YouTube and overnight Kick-Ass becomes an instant phenomenon with a million Facebook friends seeking him out. Dave is keen to keep his secret identity just that, but otherwise things are going well self-confidence wise and he even gets the girl, sweet and pretty Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca). Okay, so she actually thinks he’s her new gay BFF, but it’s just another alter ego he has to hide.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), the otherwise mild mannered father Damon Macready and his daughter Mindy, share a cup of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and plot the annihilation of drug lord Frank D’Amico’s (Mark Strong) evil empire. Mindy has been expertly trained in the fine art of assassination by her doting father; as Hit Girl, the petite 11-year-old dons a purple Clara Bow wig, cusses like a sailor, flourishes a butterfly knife and stings like a bee as she eviscerates a gang of grown men in record time.

D’Amico is not at all amused by the current crop of would-be superheroes in town. Like any criminal mastermind worth his salt he is determined to destroy the enemy, specifically Kick-Ass, whom he holds responsible for bringing down his evil lair and all henchmen in residence. D’Amico’s teenage son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is desperate to prove himself and contribute to his dad’s business. He hits the streets in the souped-up Mist Mobile as Red Mist, a stylish neo-punk rival for Kick-Ass’s claim to fame. Red Mist gains Kick-Ass’s trust with the ulterior motive to betray him along with Big Daddy and Hit Girl. Dave/Kick-Ass learns during his darkest moment that “with no power comes no responsibility:” if he flees does it even matter? If he stays, will it make a difference?

Kick-Ass is based on a graphic novel by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. Millar, who also wrote the source material for Wanted, pitched the undeveloped concept of a teenage wannabe superhero teaming with a father and daughter dynamic duo to director Vaughn; the comic book was created and released in tandem with the production of the movie. Vaughn co-wrote the script with Jane Goldman (Stardust) giving Kick-Ass its backbone, a pitch perfect story high on humor, comic book references and satisfying characters.

Then there’s the hard-core violence that is, well, comical, but consider the source. Whenever an opportunity presents itself, Vaughn does not hold back. There will be blood. Death and destruction hits hard and as often as possible, but rather than gratuitous it almost always serves to propel the story forward. Kick-Ass just wouldn’t be Kick-Ass without it.

Kick-Ass has many super strengths, but is truly invincible due to inspired casting for each and every role. Johnson’s Dave/Kick-Ass is not a stereotypical meek geek who struggles to stand up for himself; his earnest drive to find courage is always sincere and never pathetic. Mintz-Plasse will be forever recognized as Superbad’s McLovin; his facial expressions and voice are unmistakable but work perfectly for Chris/Red Mist as comic relief and menace. Mark Strong’s villain is simultaneously utterly detestable and deliciously enjoyable. And Cage does a crack up Adam West impersonation when clad in his Big Daddy get up. He is absolutely terrific here: a manic mix of Father Knows Best meets Rambo.

But the single character that could have meant the ultimate end of Kick-Ass is Mindy/Hit Girl. It’s tough to swallow an 11-year-old girl who prefers heavy artillery over Bratz dolls, can completely annihilate a heavily armed team of thugs and uses cringeworthy language, let alone like her. Moretz has the chutzpa, charm and smarts to pull it off, though. Never overly cute or contrived and fortified with a relatable backstory, Hit Girl saves the day in more ways than one.

Will Kick-Ass make the world a better place? Hard to say. But the film is definitely an escape from the inevitable burn out of the ongoing onslaught of comic contrived superhero flicks. Plus it’s a lot more fun.

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The Square

They don’t make ‘em like they used to, especially when it comes to stylish, edgy film noir flicks that defined the Forties and have inspired more misses than hits as time slinks on. Perhaps the powers that be don’t trust the intelligence of today’s filmgoing audience and have to slap on the inevitable happy ending. Or perhaps it’s getting trickier to keep an audience on their toes. The fact that it’s been a long time since contemporary genre classics such as Chinatown, Body Heat and Blood Simple is not due to a lack of trying.

Aussie director Nash Edgerton and his brother, screenwriter and actor Joel, know that it takes more than a femme fatale, a vulnerable lovesick gent, cigarette smoke and bullets to get the job done. The Square is your basic story of boy meets girl, boy commits crime for girl and someone loses big time but is so cleverly maneuvered through a twisted road of dead ends and turnouts that it feels like nouveau film noir.

Raymond (David Roberts) is a successful contractor having a passionate affair with Carla (Claire van der Boom), a hairdresser who literally lives on the other side of the tracks--in this case, an allegedly shark-infested river. Both are married to other people; there’s no love lost between Ray and the seemingly perfect Martha (Lucy Bell) while Carla tiptoes in fear around Smithy (Anthony Hayes), a smalltime thug. They dream, as illicit lovers do, of one day running away to live happily ever after. When Carla discovers a duffel bag stuffed with cash and a bloody towel hidden in the ceiling tiles, knowing that Smithy won’t wave good-bye as she trots off into the sunset with his dough, she proposes a simple plan to Ray: they take the money, burn her house down to cover their tracks and fall off the face of the earth.

Ray wants to be with Carla, but not enough to commit a major felon. Carla hedges her bets and breaks off all contact with Ray, taking his refusal to accept her plan as a lack of commitment. Love, boredom and Carla’s lost dog lead Ray to her doorstep and he’s in. Ray meets with a professional arsonist, Billy (Joel Edgerton), and his timid girlfriend Lily (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) to settle the details. Billy demands a payment upfront, so Ray works out an under-the-table deal to award a fellow contractor a job on the luxury hotel he’s constructing in exchange for a kickback.

The plan is in motion, but due to an unforeseen complication, Ray contacts Billy at the last minute to call it off. Billy doesn’t get the message and follows through with tragic results. Ray and Carla have the money, but are wracked with guilt and fear of becoming discovered. They agree to go on as normal until the time is right. That plan is also doomed to fail when Ray receives the first blackmail note and finds himself plunged into a dark nightmarish existence. Was he too big of a fool for love?

The Square was shot entirely in Sydney, Australia and while there are the typical “it was a dark and stormy night” set-ups, the fact that many scenes are staged in daylight during Christmas holiday activities gives the film a sense of normalcy that director Edgerton skillfully blows away when least expected. The viewer never sees it coming and is left stunned. There are always several possible twists looming on the horizon; the one that hits is never obvious.

Roberts plays Ray with a permanent scowl, but he’s a classic everyman who made one life-changing decision that leads to a series of bad choices and therefore is relatable and sympathetic. Regardless of what he is facing, his love and devotion to Carla is never in question. As Carla, van der Boom’s role runs a bit more into the gray area. There’s always a nagging doubt if she is the personification of the classic film noir leading lady: heartless and mercenary. She’s skilled at pulling a swift double cross and her refusal to see Ray until he concedes to her will seems manipulative and selfish. She’s difficult for the audience to trust and it’s a head-scratcher as to why Ray can easily give up his hard-earned lifestyle for her. This leads to some inconsistencies in the character which may not have been intentional.

But typical black-and-white characters with simple agendas don’t quite cut it in The Square; almost everyone is capable of nefarious ulterior motives, and they could be any one of us in a similar situation. Considering that Nash’s previous directorial experience has been with shorts and music videos and the script was Joel’s first attempt at writing a feature film, The Square is an inspired genre success.

The theatrical release of The Square is preceded by “Spider,” a nine-minute dark comedic short that Nash wrote, directed and starred in which garnered much praise and awards during the 2007/2008 film festival circuit. Joel is also featured in a small role as a paramedic. “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye,” their mum always said. It’s a perfect opening to The Square and broadcasts what the brothers Edgerton are capable of. Watch out!

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