Blocked and unblocked

Long week and a half.

Went to a lovely H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, saw much good stuff (a bit envious – sigh, movie making is soooo slow).  Wrote to several of the auteurs whose work I liked most.  No one creative ever gets enough praise – not really.  At least not directly.  I know how little feedback I get on my audio dramas, so I really wanted to pass along my kudos.

Have been trumpeting the merits of full length films “The Burrowers” and “Primal” and the shorts “40 Years”, “Silas and the Tomb” and “Frank Dancoolo”. (google the latter one, it’s streaming)

Each of these impressed me for different reasons, both from a pure enjoyment stance, and from a technical viewpoint.

The Burrowers was a visually spot-on western horror movie that was apparently done on a microbudget, and involved some super effects as well as stunning costuming, etc.

Primal really ran on the strength of the actors, particularly a blonde chick who I would normally instantly dismiss as being the first to die for being stupider than a sack of hammers.  And she stole the show.

Frank DanCoolo took a stylistic choice and ran it stright up into camp territory, and never let go.  It’s humor and eyepopping color and truly bizarre effects, and actors who played every moment to the hilt.

40 Years impressed the hell out of me by opening with a dream-like sequence that, through a minimum of odd visuals, informs you instantly that there is something “not quite right” with the protagonist, and hints at what is wrong.  The clues are there, and it all comes together beautifully by the end.

And Silas and the Tomb (the only short I couldn’t find a direct way to compliment the director on) was another that relied absolutely on a single actor, and while it was played a bit broad (for comic effect), told an entire Lovecraft story (one of his less cosmic ones – in fact this is the only direct Lovecraft adaptation that TRULY stuck in my head this time) without any words (or maybe there were a couple of expletives….)  Everything was there, though, whether you were familiar with the story or not.

Had only one thing to do on the screenplay in the last week or so – added a sex scene at the behest of one of the guys.  Long dry spell in the first half of the movie.  Actually, it was a great idea, not only got some more boobies in there but changed up some of the character dynamics (at least in the perception of the audience).  In other words – it’s illicit nookie.

Means I have to sit down and ponder shifting a couple of scenes, though, to properly build up to it.  If character A is nice and THEN betrays character B with B’s boyfriend, it’s a bit of a shock, while if it happens the other way – audience sees the nookie, then A is all nice, it makes for a completely different reaction – suspicion, mostly – to the conciliatory scene.

Interesting puzzle.

But my block has actually been on one of my audio drama scripts.  I just have to suck it up, jump in with both feet, and ask myself “what is the worst possible thing that can happen right now?” and no matter what turns up, I must run with it.

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