Screenwriter and author John August

Archives section working, sort of

March 8, 2005 Geek Alert, News

The Archives link, which has been [broken](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/archives-section-temporarily-broken) ever since switching hosts, is now un-broken — which is not to say fixed.

In its previous incarnation, the Archives section could be sorted by category and date, in a variation on the familiar Sortable Nicer Archives kludge for WP. However, the database gods must have been angered, for all supplication cannot coax them to offer up their insight. Translation: something got broken, and damned if I can fix it.

So in the spirit of Something is better than Nothing, a click on the Archives section will show you every article in the system, from most recent to oldest. It’s not very user-friendly, but the Googlebots will love it.

The Show by Category buttons, incidentally, still work great. So that’s a better choice if you’re interested in reading just the [Q and A’s](http://johnaugust.com/archives/category/qanda), for example.

Random slowdowns and non-existence

March 4, 2005 Geek Alert

geek alert A heads up for readers who occasionally get gibberish or worse when visiting [johnaugust.com](http://johnaugust.com): it’s not just you. The front page occasionally takes forever to load, or fails completely. I’d be tearing my hair out, but I keep it very short (a “1” on the clippers, thank you very much).

For once, I’m glad to report it has nothing to do with [WordPress](http://wordpress.org) or my questionable coding skills. Rather, there are some load issues on the server that hosts the site. Hopefully, we’ll have things running better within the week. Until then, please check back later if you have trouble getting to the site.

Introducing off-screen characters

March 2, 2005 Formatting, QandA

Ok, I have a question. Opening scene, no characters introduced yet and I’m
starting close on a pair of hands with a short dialogue over. We then widen
to the characters that are speaking.

Since all we see are hands, would you designate any of the dialogue as
(O.S.) or is that just too much of a “duh” situation? If yes, would you
designate both of the characters or just the one we see no part of?
Example…

INT. HOUSE – DAY

A PAIR OF ROUGH HANDS open a fresh pack of cigarettes.

CAIRO (O.S.)

Can I get one of those?

JULES (O.S.)

Do I look like I like to share?

JULES, 64 and confined to his bed, removes his oxygen tube and puts the unlit cigarette to his mouth. Blah, blah, blah, grabs a lighter, blah.

Share your wisdom, oh great one.

— Doug
New Orleans

The way you’re doing it is fine. I might be a bit more specific in the last line:

As the hands lift a cigarette to the man’s lips, we REVEAL:

JULES, 64 and confined to his bed. He pulls off his oxygen tube. Flicks open a lighter.

To Do: Destroy the world

March 1, 2005 Geek Alert, Genres

So far, I’ve worked on one movie in which the Earth is destroyed. In Titan A.E., a mysterious alien race called the Drej show up one day and blow up the Earth because…

…well, I don’t actually remember the motive. Plot wasn’t the strongest aspect of that movie.

What’s important is this: *aliens did it*. So if scientifically-minded viewers questioned the physics of how exactly the Earth was obliterated, I could simply point to the semi-transparent Drej and say, “With their superior technology, far beyond anything we can imagine!”

It’s a lucky thing that Titan A.E. had villainous aliens, because it turns out that destroying the Earth is extraordinarily difficult. With [this site](http://qntm.org/destroy), Sam Hughes examines 18 possible methods for “geocide” — a terrific word that you just don’t get to use very often. His conclusion? Aspiring supervillains need to be patient, or very lucky, because mere mega-wealth won’t guarantee you the chance to smash the Earth to smithereens.

Keep in mind that Sam focuses strictly on physically destroying the planet. Merely making it uninhabitable is several orders of magnitude easier — and we’re already well on our way!

(Via [Cruel](http://www.cruel.com).)

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