W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

Just finished a 2-day, intensive screenwriting workshop with Blake Snyder, Hollywood guru and recipient of two million-dollar paydays on his scripts. He told us he's had a 25 year career in screenwriting, and has written 78 scripts and sold 38 (or so). More about Blake and his method at www.blakesnyder.com.

What was fun was starting off Saturday morning with just vague ideas. The class was kept to 12 max so that these ideas could be worked into a logline and analyzed. Then a 2nd pass at the logline. Then we learned about the 15 beats in a well-structured script (which form part of the 40 scenes in an average script, per Blake). Our next assignment was to come back from lunch with 3 beats worked out: 1st scene, last scene and the midpoint. Then overnight we were to write out all 15 beats and share them. And the final exercise was getting up and doing a 10-min pitch of your story!

That was fun -- seeing these ideas go from vague and fuzzy to real, fleshed out, well-structured stories. We also brainstormed and questioned each other to make the works better. Several people got better screenplay names than what they'd had. (Blake suggested I call HEAVEN & NELL a different name -- ANGEL FALLS. But that's not gonna happen. My story name is fun and has a history.)

Mostly I worked on the comedy script I plan to write next: CAN'T SAY NO. Logline: A shy engineer invents glasses that give him such charisma he can convince anyone to do anything. But then his evil Shopping TV Channel bosses use them to take over cable TV -- and next, the world!

Oh, and fun surprise: Robert Rodriquez's cousin Al who co-writes most of Robert's stories with him was there. He already has some script credits, including FROM DUSK TO DAWN III (I didn't even realize that movie got sequels).

( Here's Blake at Dinner... )

So lately I've been watching stuff on YouTube.com that is freaking me out -- ! These are real British shows on BBC, too. With some of the weirdest, oddest stories and character. Foremost among these, is a "cult favorite" show on BBC3 that stars Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt called THE MIGHTY BOOSH. It appears to have started as a comedy skit (won the audience favorite award at the Edinburgh Fringe -- yay, the Fringe!) and a radio show. Now on TV, with remarkably lovely production values -- check out the interior and exterior shots of the "Nabootique" which is a shop owned by Naboo the shaman, a deadpan short man in a blue turban -- but with odd stories and weirder music. Lots of humor and songs are like something a five-year-old would sing on the swings. But done by adult people and very deadpan! A few highlights:

• Howard and Vince argue about his long jazz trances and not getting work done (they're supposed to be zoo workers).
  
• Howard and Vince arguing about what music to play while driving: jazz-funk! "Jazz's deformed cousin!"
  
• Vince meets the Crack Fox (also played by Julian); now it gets weird and even has animation! "It's blood from a cat's face!"
  
• The New Rave song ("Eels!") -- check out the interesting makeup, hair and costuming... trippy
  
• Sometimes the moon speaks (Noel), and for some reason sounds like a low-IQ frenchman...

I found out about the Mighty Boosh while looking up Russell Brand -- who I mentioned as being interesting as the tall, flamboyant, 12-step-working rockstar boyfriend in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. Brand himself, with his looooong skinny legs squeezed into tight black jeans, black boots, jewelry and Dickensian way of speaking, is a treat. He and Noel Fielding are HUGE in the UK. HUGE! Here, not so much. They're good buddies and appear together a lot. Brand does a sort of stream-of-consciousness silly talk that can be quite witty, and then go silly and offcolor, and fills Albert Hall to the brim when he performs! And at the ripe old age of 36 (or so) he wrote a best-selling biography, mostly about how he kicked booze and heroin.

• Here's Brand at the Albert Hall; he's talking about Woody Harrelson.
  
• Here's Brand on his TV show PONDERLAND.
  
• Here's Brand on one of his radio shows.

But then I found Brand and Fielding were partners on this fascinating annual TV quiz show, THE BIG FAT QUIZ SHOW. I was hooked on the quit wits of the six competitors (Brand and Fielding were actually childish and silly compared to the others), and watched all of 2007 and 2006. That's where I saw Johnathon Ross was one of the smartest guys there, and he's the husband of Jane Golden, who I just saw is also the producer of the quiz show. Jane is the screenwriter of STARDUST, the movie based on the book by Neil Gaiman and my friend-of-a-friend, Charles Vess. That's my small world story for tonight!