John August

Archives for 2009

On 2010

Psych 101, Random Advice

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. No matter how well-intentioned, they never last. That initial burst of enthusiasm (“I’ll write one hour first thing in the morning!”) morphs into a sinkhole of counter-productive resentment (“I didn’t write this morning, and I’m a terrible person.”)

So for the past few years, I’ve been aiming more towards “areas of interest” rather than true resolutions. That way, there’s no promise to be broken.

For 2009, two of my publicly-professed areas of interest were:

  1. Trying more Austrian white wines
  2. Finding a nemesis

Some background is obviously in order.

Austrian white wines seemed like just the right level of achievable affectation. They’re neither rare nor ubiquitous. You’ll find one or two reasonably-priced bottles on many restaurant’s wine lists. And it’s extremely low-risk: the worst Austrian white wine I’ve had is pretty damn good.

While I didn’t become an instant expert in Austrian whites this year — I didn’t Tim Ferriss it — I consider the experiment a strong success. I drank good wine and became pals with the Grüner Veltliner grape. Ask a sommelier about Austrian whites and he lights up, happy to talk about something new.

The nemesis idea never really took off.

It all sprang from a basic realization: I’m competitive. Some of my most productive periods have come when I’ve actively compared myself to someone else — and if it was someone I disliked, all the better. I saw a nemesis as a way to harness my negative emotions in the service of getting stuff done.

But I could never think of a good nemesis. It’s a tricky combination: You need to both respect and despise the person simultaneously. There are many filmmaker-types I respect, but they’re all genuinely good people. There are a handful of filmmakers I despise, but I don’t respect them enough to care what they’re doing.

I needed an evil J.J. Abrams, but I never found one.

In thinking about my areas of interest for 2010, I’m taking my cues from last year: pursuing things that make me happy (wine) and avoiding things that don’t. Again, these aren’t resolutions in the classic sense, but rather statements of philosophy — ideas I want to pursue more strongly in the year ahead.

Auf Wiedersehen, Schadenfreude

You know who I’m rooting for in 2010? Everyone.

I’m rooting for Spider-Man the Musical, Ghost Rider 2, ScriptShadow and the Republican party. While I have serious concerns with each, I’ll happily cheer the best versions of any of them, because it’s not a zero-sum game.

Life, movies and popular culture are a lot more like Settlers of Catan than Monopoly. You don’t win by destroying and humiliating your opponents.

I want 2010 to be the biggest year at the box office for both clever indies and mega-tentpoles based on sticker books. I want a year crammed with so many award-worthy titles that ten best picture slots seems like too few.

For 2010, I’ll be watching for that twinge of schadenfreude and trying to snuff it out immediately. Negative emotion is a waste of time.

Archery

The new Austrian white. Because if it turns out I’m terrible at it, who cares?

Work as the reward

A confession: on some projects, the only way I can force myself to sit at the computer is to calculate the amount I’m being paid per page, until greed or guilt makes the writing happen.

I’m hoping the majority of my work for the new year can be done with healthier motivation. It is tremendously satisfying to be writing well, and that should be the goal. 1

Twenty-ten is going to be a busy year, though it’s not clear exactly which projects will happen.

I’ll be adapting How I Became a Famous Novelist and working on a movie I owe Fox. One very long-simmering non-movie project should finally be announced.

There is also a new version of this site that is just about ready to launch, and an iPhone app I’ll soon be beta-testing.

But that’s after the New Year. Until then, I’ll be on break. Happy Holidays. See you on the other side.

  1. I taught my daughter to read this year, and was careful to make sure she enjoyed it for the sense of achievement rather than my praise. “Good job!” is a trap. ↩

On the physics of space battles

Genres

Joseph Shoer looks at some of the uncomfortable science behind these science-fiction mainstays:

Explosions are basically a waste of energy in space. On the ground, these are devastating because of the shock wave that goes along with them. But in the vacuum of space, an explosion just creates some tenuous, expanding gases that would be easily dissipated by a hull.

Better choices for weapons include radiation, lasers and old-fashioned bullets. But don’t expect fast-and-nimble dogfights, because steering a ship in space is laborious. With no atmosphere to cut against, changing directions takes time and lots of fuel.

The z-axis fighting we’ve recently come to embrace — the new Star Trek did it a lot — only makes sense in certain circumstances. Orbiting a planet, things get flat again:

The marauding space fleets are going to be governed by orbit dynamics -– not just of their own ships in orbit around planets and suns, but those planets’ orbits. For the same reason that we have Space Shuttle launch delays, we’ll be able to tell exactly what trajectories our enemies could take between planets […] So, it would actually make sense to build space defense platforms in certain orbits, to point high-power radar-reflection surveillance satellites at certain empty reaches of space, or even to mine parts of the void. It also means that strategy is not as hopeless when we finally get to the Bugger homeworld: the enemy ships will be concentrated into certain orbits, leaving some avenues of attack guarded and some open.

In writing your space epic, do you even need to worry about any of this?

Only to the degree your viewers will.

Each movie and TV series establishes its own level of plausibility, and as long as it plays within that range, audiences are largely satisfied. Space in Apollo 13 is nothing like space in Star Wars. A viewer who complains too much about the Millennium Falcon’s propulsion system will be justifiably shunned.

A general rule for screenwriters is to stick with genre conventions unless there is a story benefit to changing them. For example, in modern space adventure movies you get artificial gravity, warp drive, and shields for free. You can roll your own if it suits your story, but that screen time is likely better used in service of your characters and plot.

(Thanks to Nima for the link.)

Seven writer’s rules for survival in animation

Film Industry, Genres, Words on the page, Writing Process

Rob Edwards has a great post on MakingOf with very useful suggestions for screenwriters working on their first animated feature.

I’m currently on my third (Frankenweenie), and while the words on the page are the same as any other feature, the process is completely different. And frustrating, honestly, until you get used to it. Rob’s post walks newcomers through some of the biggest hurdles.

(Thanks to Barrett for the link.)

Handling repeating sequences

QandA, Words on the page

questionmarkI’m writing a screenplay with a dream sequence that repeats itself identically three times in the script. It’s about half a page long. Should I repeat it word for word in the screenplay? I’m afraid writing “Fred has the same dream as before” won’t recreate the feeling for the reader, but writing the same thing three times feels weird.

— Joe
New York

Do neither of the above. Rather, think about the audience sitting in the theater watching your movie. Are you actually showing them exactly the same dream sequence? If so, that sounds pointless and boring.

Much more likely — and more interesting — is that the audience is getting some new information in the subsequent dream sequences, details that would push the story forward. Something would have changed, and it’s those changes you need to show on the page.

INT. DENTIST’S OFFICE – DAY [DREAM SEQUENCE]

Once again, the spinning drill bears down on Tom. Same whine. Same panic.

But this time, our attention shifts to the man behind the dentist’s mask -- who isn’t a man at all, but rather

A GRAY-SKINNED ALIEN.