Friday, April 25, 2008

Writing

Been writing all this week which means there's dozens of index cards lining our apartment floor. It's basically like a giant puzzle. So far the story has a REALLY strong first act, a pretty solid third act, and lots of great ideas in the second act that don't quite connect to one another just yet. I have to play around with the placement of current ideas, constantly contribute new ideas, and toss out ideas that no matter how much I may like them, just don't seem to be working.

Mercury Men is a tricky story to tell only because I know beforehand the production will have limited resources. It'd be easy to write, "the Employee dives through the sparkling window, catching the leg of the hovering helicopter moments before plunging to the street below," but making a scene like that happen is impossible. Therefore I have to force myself to come up with creative action sequences based in an office environment. No, our lowly office employee can't hang from the bottom of a helicopter, but what if he was attacked inside a small elevator without a weapon or an escape? That can be just as intense.

I also have to keep telling myself to keep the story incredibly simple. I decided to pursue this film strictly because it can be made cheap and quickly. I don't want it to get bogged down with a complicated story. Mercury Men is more of a fable or fairy tale. A simple story of a man who needed the very moon to come crashing down before he'd change his life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dude I saw the mercury men at the LCCFF and I was Dazzled! That was a truly remarkable experience in modern pulp sci-fi...I would have been HAPPY to have bought it for$10 $1.00 for every minute of that movie..it would have been worth it..I swear this movie seriously owns that much. I was salty they weren't selling it at the film festival(unlike captain Blasto a few years back), maybe cause I don't know if you were present at the Lake County this year.
well!...
How on earth or who do I have to karate chop to get a copy of this movie...please tell me: goldwind_gates@yahoo.com
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