Greg's Screenplays

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Okay, I'm stealing a page from Cranefly (See what I did there) and I'm attaching a screenplay I just wrote to this post. I'm hoping you will take the time to read it and give me some feedback.
At the moment I'm think of it as my Jackie Chan behind the scenes of making a martial arts movie movie. Please enjoy and tell me what you think.

You can download the pdf here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20144753/wireScreenplay.pdf">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20144753/wireScreenplay.pdf</a><!-- m -->

[cranefly]

I'm planning to get to this soon.
Right now I'm trapped in an alien village.

--cranefly

[Drunk Monk]

although it's a different alien village

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I don't know where you are in the reading process, but I did another clean-up pass on the screenplay to remove typos.

You can download the new version here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/20144753/wireScreenplay2.pdf">https://dl.dropbox.com/u/20144753/wireScreenplay2.pdf</a><!-- m -->

FYI: Don't spend a lot of time proofing it. I know there are plenty of mistakes. I'm going to pick those up through the rewrite process(HAHAHAHAHA)

[Drunk Monk]

...at least for another week. sorry i haven't gotten to it yet.

[Drunk Monk]

...but I still got a chance to peruse this.

Firstly, as we've discussed before, I don't care for the screenplay format. That's nothing against your work, Greg. It's just my personal issue like my dislike of Statham and Paltrow. There's something about dialog-based writing that seldom works for me unless its Shakespearian-level poetry or Samuel Beckett or such. I confess, I was tentative especially knowing that your 'formula' for writing often opens with a rhetorical question and then answers itself, which I worried would get you trapped in stale dialog. Fortunately, your dialog was pretty good overall. I was amused by the ninja pirate comment, as well some offhand references where you were processing the martial world, like Suxi's pagoda (mind you, he was not really ever an abbot, at least, not according to the 'official' party line statement now). The names tripped me up. There is a logic to Chinese names, a distinction between Mandarin and Cantonese which is pivotal when it comes to filmmaking as one is PRC and the other HK. Also, some names that just don't exist because there are only a few hundred actual Chinese names, believe it or not. The names started sounding a little Long Duk Dong to me, but that's nitpicky. Nevertheless, it's entertaining, and I would enjoy seeing it as a film, assuming you could add a Bollywood number or two.

Have you seen Ah Kam with Michelle Yeoh? It's sort of a stunt person film, an odd flick because she got seriously injured during production, and the film comes to a screeching halt as the rest had to be rewritten to accommodate an injured Michelle (they show it all in the NG). You might also check out Craig Reid's Red Trousers, which is a doc he made on the topic.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Thanks for reading, DM.

The screenplay format is creaky but it is what they use to make movies. Think of it more as a blueprint for movie making than actual story telling.

Yes, my names blow. I"m trying to force a joke and it's probably not working. Wo Na => Warner. Lem Lee => Laemle, the forerunner to Paramount. But I have a Chinese name resource that will make them all better in the re-write.

[Drunk Monk]

...But then I don't care for looking at blueprints either. Not when I can just go into the building and admire the architecture. So forgive me if I sound overly critical. I just don't care to read screenplays. If you really wanted to bug me, you'd get Stathan and Paltrow to read your screenplay to me....actually I take that back. I might enjoy that...especially if you could work in a swordfight.

I totally missed the name game you were playing. Perhaps it would work better if you used the real Chinese names for Warner and Laemle, although I didn't even know what Laemle was until now. Maybe that was a tad too obscure for me to appreciate.

I should also say that I found the dialog between the trainer and the trainee on qigong very amusing. At first, I thought it was going to be preachy, but I liked where it went in the end and it served as some good peripheral character development.

And of course, I'll read your stuff. Lord knows you read enough of mine and I write a lot of crap. Heck, isn't that what DOOM is about? Iron sharpeneth iron... ;-)

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

How come they never made the movie just showing Mike Myers in the Halloween movies? Show how he escapes the hospital, how he learns to drive the car, going to the hardware store to buy knives and rope, his decisions on what Halloween mask to get, the pain in the ass it was to get the cemetary stone into the car and then into the house, etc etc?

[Drunk Monk]

it's a horror flick, not a documentary.

[cranefly]

It could make for an intriguing horror movie if done right. It's like taking all the backstory of the series and making that the story.

But then for it to work really well, this story (previously the backstory) will then need a backstory. I'm thinking mirrors will be crucial. The budget on mirrors alone will be the most expensive part, because of all these recursive reflections going on. That and filming all the hockey games. It needs to have lots of hockey footage.

[Drunk Monk]

I think you're thinking Jason, as he wears the hockey mask. We're talking about Michael Myers, who wears the Captain Kirk mask. Not to be confuzzled with Mike Myers who wears the bald head wig.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I was going for comedy. Without a hockey mask, of course.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It bothered me enough that I didn't tell the full story of what happened to Los Angeles in Shaolin Training for the Upcoming Apocalypse that I wrote a feature length screenplay for it. Plus, I like the title "Dead Angeles". Please read and give me your feedback. I'm sure DM will hate all the names.

You can download the pdf here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/20144753/deadAngeles.pdf">https://dl.dropbox.com/u/20144753/deadAngeles.pdf</a><!-- m -->

[Drunk Monk]

until i move