John August

Genres

Vampires are the imaginary numbers of modern literature

Genres, Reading

After a [bad beginning](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/to-the-guy-sitting-in-7a), I spent the flight home from Colorado reading Barry Mazur’s [Imagining Numbers](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374174695/), which looks at how we might best conceive of imaginary numbers, those uncomfortable gremlins that occur when you start looking for the square root of negative numbers.

The book was only okay. It tried to be history lesson, philosophical study and math review all at once, and in its scattershot approach never quite achieved its stated thesis.

But one benefit of a mediocre book is that one’s mind is free to wander. Over the course of reading Mazur’s book, I decided:

1. To paint a giant number line on my daughter’s playroom wall. Addition and subtraction make a lot more sense with some geometry behind them, and Mazur’s description of numbers as verbs rather than nouns is revelatory.

2. The sense of needing “permission” to do something is generally an indication of an unasked question: “What would happen if I *did* take the square root of a negative number,” or “What if my protagonist *could* hear the voice-over narration?” (c.f. [Stranger Than Fiction](http://imdb.com/title/tt0420223/))

3. Vampires are the imaginary numbers of modern literature.

This last point merits further elaboration.

Vampires do not exist. That is, they do not exist in the same way you or I do. You’ve never met an undead blood-sucker, and neither have I. Yet we can both agree on quite a few characteristics of these non-existent beings:

* They drink blood.
* They avoid sunlight.
* They’re strong.
* They are undead and undying, except by special procedures.

This checklist is by no means complete: different writers may choose to add or subtract abilities. Shape-shifting and hypnosis were once pretty common traits that have all but disappeared from the modern vampire. Likewise, flight and coffin-sleeping seem to be on the wane.

In films, books and television, you can find urban vampires, feral vampires and even white-trash varieties. Yet the sense of “vampire-ness” seems fairly fixed. Here’s a test: grab a random teenager and ask him how to kill a vampire. Then ask him how to change a tire. I suspect the more complete answer will involve a wooden stake.

So how are vampires the imaginary numbers of modern literature?

Neither vampires nor imaginary numbers exist, yet we treat them like they do, simply because it suits our purposes. Imaginary numbers let us posit hypothetical mathematical scenarios; vampires let us imagine hypothetical human scenarios. Want an addiction analogy? Vampires. Epidemic? Vampires. Alienation? Vampires. Need to have your protagonist exist both now and two hundred years in the past? Just make him a vampire.

Modern literature has substituted vampires into every conceivable genre. And I don’t think it’s any accident that our bitey friends have become the go-to supernatural beings. Werewolves are only part-time monsters. Ghosts lack a consistent mythology. Vampires, well, *they’re just like us.*

But different. They’re imaginary numbers, who can’t be reduced beyond their glamorous other-ness.

I haven’t written a vampire movie yet, but the key word is “yet.” I came close last year, and it’s almost a given that I will at some point. It’s like a screenwriter’s rite of passage. And when I do, I intend to invoke some serious calculus on that shit.

Making the geek movie

Geek Alert, Genres, QandA, Recycled

When you know computers pretty well, you start seeing certain things in certain movies as being rather idiotic. A huge amount of pictures scrolling by during a search, 3D graphics exploding out of an old laptop during hacking in [HACKERS](http://imdb.com/title/tt0113243/combined), people using Microsoft Word as a magical web search engine, etc. That stuff never happens in real life!

To a techie, it’s as realistic as trouts flying by in the background during a romantic love scene in a desert.

The good thing is, things are looking up. Real hacking is being shown in mainstream movies, a good example being the usage of NMap and an old SSH exploit in [MATRIX: RELOADED](http://imdb.com/title/tt0234215/combined). Sure, the movie wasn’t centered around it, but it was kind of neat. (There’s more such goodness in the original version of the [MATRIX](http://imdb.com/title/tt0133093/combined) script.)

[CONTACT](http://imdb.com/title/tt0118884/combined) was a movie built entirely around physics and technology that wasn’t afraid to use them and it was successful as well.

Do you think there’s room in the amateur movie scene for a movie that not only portrays the hacker subculture, (and by ‘hackers’ we mean ‘really experienced computer users’ not just the ‘evil’ ones) but literally swims in it, twisting and turning around it, weaving in and out of it, wrapping itself around it and being wrapped inside it, like a [Klein bottle](http://www.kleinbottle.com/)?

I mean, there’s a market for it, yes, but the market consists of, well, people like us. Could a technical movie be a success on film festivals? And what advice would you give us? (Other than “get a life and do something useful.”)


— Elver
Estonia

Great question, and great home country. I only spent about twelve hours in lovely Tallinn, Estonia, but it completely lived up to its over-hype about being the next Prague (but quainter). Doubters, may I direct you to [this photo](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/tallinn.jpg).

Now, on to the matter of your proposed geek opus.

Yes, Elver, yes. There is definitely room in the film universe for a uber-geek movie, be it a thriller, a drama, a comedy or whatever. Film festivals would love it, and even if your film didn’t cross over to become a giant mainstream movie, who cares?

Let me offer proof by way of comparison. Take Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne’s excellent [SIDEWAYS](http://imdb.com/title/tt0375063/combined), which is overwhelmingly obsessed with wine in ways that no normal audience member could hope to fathom. Even though we don’t really understand the intricacies of what they’re discussing — I dare you to find a topic less cinematic than pinot noir grapes — we believe the characters know what they’re talking about, and that helps make it fascinating. Sideways is a wine-geek movie, and if it hadn’t been brilliant on all its other levels, it still would have had a following among oenophiles.

An even closer comparison is Shane Carruth’s [PRIMER](http://imdb.com/title/tt0390384). Although it only progressed slightly beyond the festival circuit, it’s certain to do great on DVD. Like [Pi](http://imdb.com/title/tt0138704/combined) before it, Primer consists of geeky people saying a lot of ponderous gibberish without any nod to audience understanding. I loved it.

So by all means, make your geek movie. Hell, shoot it in Tallinn. Just make sure that while you’re being accurate and honest with all the techie details, you’re also being accurate and honest with the human emotions in the story. Do it right, do it well, and I’ll be the first in line.

(Originally posted January 21, 2005.)

How many drafts does it take?

Genres, QandA, Writing Process

questionmarkHow many rewrites do you go through before you feel your baby is ready to be read by agents, producers, etc? And does a screenwriter have to focus on just one genre or can he or she cross-pollinate into another genre? I notice some movies blur into two genres occasionally.

— Daniel De Lago

When I read about professional chefs, they often talk about having a “food sense” that tells them when something is ready. That is, they can put the fish under the broiler, then go off and work on something else, and return at exactly the moment the fish is perfectly cooked.

This “knowing when it’s done” sense only develops with experience. Beginning chefs are all too likely to pull something out a little too raw or overcooked and flavorless.

And the same is true with screenwriting. When I was first starting out, I was really unsure about when a draft was finished. I now have a pretty good sense of when something is ready for public consumption, which for me is really the first draft. That is, I’ve generally hand-written scenes, typed them up, assembled them into one big draft (called, cleverly, the “first assembly”). I then spend considerable hours tweaking and shaping and revising until I have what I consider the first draft.

This is what goes to my assistant for proofreading and reality-checking. (“Did you mean for the hero to leave in a helicopter but land in a private jet?”) A few quick fixes, and it’s ready to be seen by whoever the point person is on the project, generally the producer or executive who hired me.

Should you, Daniel, hand in a draft this early? Probably not. I’m a better writer now than when I first began, and don’t make the same mistakes I used to. To continue the cooking analogy, one way to make sure something is done is to check the temperature. Use your trusted friends and colleagues as your thermometer. Let them be your guide as to when something is safe to put on the plate.

In terms of genre, I never pay that much attention to what something is “supposed to” be, which is one reason my movies are a little bit hard to place on the shelves at Blockbuster. Go, Big Fish and Charlie’s Angels are all generally filed under comedy, but they’re not the same kind of comedies that Tim Allen stars in.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Tim Allen comedies.

(Well, actually, there is. The one that’s actually funny — Galaxy Quest — is funny because it’s not really Tim Allen’s movie, and relies on a big and talented cast to carry the film’s complicated conceit. But I digress.)

Genre should be a guide, not a straightjacket. One of the reasons I’ve never written a romantic comedy is that the expectations are so clear (meet-cute, complication, misunderstanding, resolution) that it wouldn’t feel very fulfilling to create one.

Inciting Incident: Koo Koo Roo edition

Genres

kookoorooI went to [Koo Koo Roo](http://www.kookooroo.com/) on Larchmont last night to grab dinner: half rotisserie chicken, cucumber salad, mixed veggies, to go.

While I was turning to go into the parking lot, I noticed a white SUV near the curb. It was bucking strangely. My first instinct was that the driver didn’t know how to use stick. Then I thought, maybe it was crazy custom low-rider shocks. But you really don’t see that on SUV’s, even on [Pimp My Ride](http://www.mtv.com/onair/dyn/pimp_my_ride/series.jhtml?_requestid=537594).

Then I saw that there was a man standing on the passenger side running board. It looked like he was strapping something down to the roof. That would explain why the car was shaking.

My curiosity satisfied, I parked.

When I came back around to the front of the restaurant, I noticed the SUV was still in roughly the same spot. The guy was still standing on the running board, but he wasn’t trying to attach anything. Rather, he had both hands on the roof rack, holding on tight while the SUV’s driver (a woman) tried to shake him off. That’s why the car was “bouncing” earlier.

I stood at the door of Koo Koo Roo for about 10 seconds, trying to figure out what the hell was going on — and what, if anything, I should do. Here’s roughly my thought process:

* The woman’s on her cell phone. She’s in her late 20’s, maybe. It’s hard to see inside the car.

* The man is maybe 40. Latino. He keeps knocking on the windows.

* She seems upset, but not terrified. Almost more annoyed. She’s not crying.

* I wonder who she’s talking to on the phone. A friend? The police?

* He keeps saying (in English), “I need to talk to you.”

* He seems really rational. But rational people don’t cling to moving vehicles.

* She should drive to a police station. That’s what I’d do.

* Where is the nearest police station? I have no idea.

* I don’t know if he knows her. He’s not saying her name.

* He’s wearing white. Maybe a uniform. Maybe a parking attendant.

* She should keep driving down Larchmont. There’s a ton of people, so if she really does need help, she can get it.

* I bet he’s a parking attendant, and she drove off without paying.

* There’s only one other spectator watching. That guy at the bus stop.

* He was there when I pulled in, so he must have seen more of this. He probably knows what’s going on.

* If I got involved, maybe he’d back me up.

* She’s trying to shake him off again.

optical illusionThe weirdest thing was how my perception of who was the “good guy” kept flipping back and forth, like one of those [foreground-background optical illusions](http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/optical_illusions/foreground_background.html) where you see either the Young Woman or the Old Crone but not both at the same time. Second by second, I thought, “she’s in danger” or “he’s in danger.”

He’d bang on the windows, so I’d decide he was a threat. Then she’d try to shake him off, and I was suddenly worried he’d fall to the pavement and get run over.

With both scenarios equally plausible, I decided I’d cautiously approach and ask the man what was going on. With the right tone of voice, it wouldn’t sound like a direct threat. If he gave a reasonable answer, I could talk to him like a reasonable person. If he gave me a Crazy Man answer, I’d know he was the problem, and…well, I didn’t know what I’d do, but at least I’d know he was the bad guy.

Just as I stepped forward to move from Spectator to Participant in this drama, the SUV pulled around the corner onto Beverly, picking up considerable speed. The man seemed unfazed. I realized that it’s surprisingly easy to cling to an SUV. No one would consider clinging to my little Toyota.

larchmontThe SUV took the first right turn, then disappeared from sight. I looked over to the guy at the bus stop, hoping for some gesture or nod that would reassure me that everything was okay, that neither of the two parties would end up harmed tonight.

Bus Stop Guy gave me nothin’. He just turned back to the street, waiting for his ride.

At the Koo Koo Roo counter, John August Concerned Citizen slowly reverted into John August Screenwriter, as I tried to construct scenarios to explain what had just happened. The parking lot attendant theory made the most sense, because I’ve encountered some surprisingly zealous asphalt barons in Los Angeles. Would one really risk his life by clinging to the side of a car? Maybe.

But the other scenarios — Furious Boyfriend, Eerily Calm Stalker, Random Psycho — also seemed to fit.

After watching this scene unfold, I wasn’t even sure what “genre” it belonged in. If you put Will Ferrell in the guy’s role, clinging to the side of an SUV, then it’s a comedy. Hugh Grant, and it’s a romantic comedy. Sean Penn, and it’s a thriller. (Unless Sean Penn’s playing mentally handicapped, then it’s [I Am Sam](http://imdb.com/title/tt0277027/combined).)

As I was driving home a few minutes later, I kept mulling over the scene — though part of me was busier contemplating actors and their career choices. Sean Penn used to be funny, damn it. C’mon, Spicoli!

I drove past the intersection where the SUV had turned, and glanced up the street out of idle curiosity.

The SUV was stopped there. The man was on the roof.

He was hugging the top of it like every action movie cliche, ankles dangling off the edge. The SUV wasn’t moving, but the guy seemed braced for doing 60 on the freeway.

By the time I spotted them, it was too late to make the turn. Instead, I hung three rights to circle around the block. It seemed to take forever. These were quiet residential streets — exactly the place you shouldn’t go if there’s some random lunatic clinging onto your car. Also troubling: my stubborn parking lot attendant theory was making less sense by the moment. Whatever urban logic makes it reasonable for a guy making minimum wage to wrestle a car also dictates that at some point he gives up.

This guy wasn’t giving up.

As I turned the third right, I figured that the driver and I would now at least be adjacent. I could roll down my window and ask if she was okay, if she was in danger. I could do something. By now, it was obvious I should have done something back at Koo Koo Roo.

But when I got back to the corner, there was no SUV. While I was circling the block, she must have driven off, with the guy still presumably clinging to her roof-rack. They were gone, and I didn’t know which one to worry about.

Do you call the police in this situation? Do you just forget about it, and check the papers in the morning? I was left — I am left — with an unsettling lack of closure. Yes, I want to know that no one’s hurt, but even more, I want to know what the hell I saw.

Was it funny or scary? Young Woman or Old Crone? I don’t know. Real life sucks that way.