My To-Do List

Hello! Good to see you? Any news?

In Australis some years back. I thought we should fly there but Celine said she knew the way!

It's a lovely bright midday in Limerick and I have already finished my short for this deadline. Mockumentary was the genre and I am very happy with it. I am judging my happiness level on whether I would like to write a short as a feature, and this mockumentary definitely feels like a fun feature to write!

"What's it about?" You bellow? Well I'll tell you dear reader. It is about a family of mass murderers (think Texas Chainsaw Massacre) who allow a documentary filmmaker to interview them. I styled the filmmaker Tim on Louis Theroux and for this short I only included the brothers Phil a.k.a SLICE and the ever annoying Derek. Derek acts as the mechanic of their ghost town who lures in unsuspecting victims. I think this would be a fun world to explore in a feature as we follow Slice as he sets up his traps. visits his doctor after the final girl injures him and introduces us to the rest of his family.

But I don't have time for feature writing right now. Currently on my list of objectives right now are:

Day job.

A new podcast.

Next short in the 55 Genres challenge.

A short script rewrite for a potential short film production.

A Christmas feature script.

Christmas shopping.

So I'm going to take each objective and let you know how they are going.

DAY JOB

Working nine to five, what a way to make a living!

It's an office job. Monday to Friday. It pays bills. I hold no interest in it. It is what it is. So let's try and get a writing career sooner rather than later shall we? Honestly, I'm a bit too creative and energetic for the position I'm in.

NEW PODCAST

I've started recording episodes for a brand new podcast. My first podcast too! I'm quite excited by it. It's a comedy improv sort of podcast called Tyrants In Training.

In this podcast I will invite a guest on for each episode, where I will act as their loyal advisor and ask them a series of questions about how they would rule a hypothetical new island that they create and lord over. I have asked three people these questions outside of recordings (as a test) and one recording is in the can and so far I can report back that every Tyrant has resorted to killing off those that displeases them. Hey! I'm not judging, I am just going along with whatever the tyrant wants. I like the open ended questions I have to ask and the different routes people have gone. Some send traitors to constructed gulags in Antarctica. Some bribe the UN with flowers. Volcanos seem a popular feature on their islands. One made the ingenious, money spinning decision to sell off the naming rights of the country to a global film company.

It's been fun so far in these early stages. I hope to get 10 episodes recorded before releasing them weekly. As I am still learning and making it up as I go along I am not sure where it will be available but it will be somewhere!

NEXT SHORT

Back to our blog's original purpose. I am now onto number 15 of 55. PARODY.

I'm really looking forward to this genre but I am also a little worried because I am very thoughtful on this genre. I am a big fan of the ZAZ teams early work and classics of the spoof genre. Airplane!, Naked Gun, Hot Shots! You also have later work such as Spy Hard, Austin Powers and the first Scary Movie.

Later spoof movies like Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, An American Carol and all those sequels to Scary Movie left me disillusioned with what was a major influence on my own comedy. I intensely dislike the urge form parody movies to shoehorn in a nod to whatever is popular at the time of filming. See parrot in Scary Movie 2 who quotes The Weakest Link host Anne Robinson "You are the weakest link, goodbye". Granted, comedy might be the worst genre for aging badly, but I'm always very wary with introducing a joke about what is popular right now into a script. I think you can get enough jokes out of likeable (interesting) characters and situations. I would rather make a joke about filmmaking itself than do it.

Speaking of which, there are 15 rules David Zucker has given us for writing comedy that I will share here

I have broken these rules a little here and there but they are a good list to remember if you want to work on your own comedy writing.

SHORT SCRIPT REWRITE

Away from comedy, parodies, I am rewriting my short from all the way back at number five on the list - SUPERHERO MOVIE. The short - which I called The Super Hero - MAY (and I can't possibly stress that word enough) get filmed in the future as a short film. Which is great news! I don't want to speak too much about it other than the need to rewrite it. Originally the script really leaned on a twist at the end whereas after some feedback I am planning to rewrite it so the story keeps a twist at the end but allows for a stronger back and forth between protagonist and antagonist.

I have two ideas for the story where I can write it in a post apocalyptic world or in a real life, modern setting. Currently, I am leaning towards modern setting but in my mind the two versions are:

Post Apocalypse - The Super Hero meets The Road

Modern setting - The Super Hero meets Prisoners

So I will be rewriting this for today and hope to complete it soon.

CHRISTMAS FEATURE

To fill you in on a bit of background, for Celine's birthday, she asked for a rom-com script. Partly because she loves rom-coms and she knows I hate them and partly because she thinks I can write funny stuff. So I wrote a spoof rom-com of An Affair to Remember. Celine loved it and I actually got some lovely feedback on it that it was funny and wildly weird.

Now with Christmas approaching I of course have to write another script on Celine's other adored genre - Hallmark Christmas movies!

Instead of trying to spoof these as like I did with An Affair to Remember, I thought about doing something different. Something experimental I guess. We all know (I hope) that stories involve conflict and characters overcoming them (or failing to) which usually involves a character growing and transforming from an old way of life to new. I am thinking, what if, instead of conflict occurring between likeable and detestable characters, why don't I just dive into the Christmas spirit and create a story with no conflict whatsoever?

A story about a Christmas Camp that doesn't need money or else they'll shut down, but they put on a talent show anyway! About staff who get bad news (Mom's been rushed to surgery) only to quickly learn that's great! (Mom just operated on and saved a really cute baby hippo! She's a hero!) This script will be unapologetically, over the top happy and cheerful. A story about nice people having nice things. Why not? It's Christmas!

I will add that I am usually a cynical sort that is uncomfortable with emotions but I do still have feelings you know!

So I have started this script. About 1/10th of the way through. I am going to have to have this ready by Christmas. I'm sure I will!

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

And lastly, this year me and Celine have given each other a mammoth task of finding each other 30 presents each. We love opening presents! These are also being divided into categories. For example there is the "Best socks" category. "Three crafted presents" (that is where the Christmas script comes in) and many more! I have one present already received and hope to get working on that list a lot more over the next week. Of course, on the assumption Celine reads this I am going to have to keep the details under wraps (under WRAPS - like wrapping paper - GET IT?!) so that's all the news on this part!

That's my news for this week. Next week will be Halloween of course so I will have to figure out some spooky themed blog to do. I'm actually not a horror movie type of guy so I will have to work on something. Maybe I'll live blog my viewing of a horror movie? I don't know yet.

Anyhoo! Feel free to say hello on Twitter or Instant Gram

Other than that, thanks for reading!

Now Healthy Kevin