John August

Search Results for: characters

Good Night, and Good Luck. And Good Job.

Meta

murrowOver the weekend, I went to see [Good Night, and Good Luck](http://imdb.com/title/tt0433383/) at [The Arclight](http://www.arclightcinemas.com/). I liked it a lot, not only for its strong performances, but also its complete disregard for anything approaching traditional narrative structure.

The screenplay, by [George Clooney](http://imdb.com/name/nm0000123/) and [Grant Heslov](http://imdb.com/name/nm0381416/), is full of good dialogue — much of it apparently drawn from transcripts. What it doesn’t have are other Syd Field essentials, such as character arcs, reversals, and clear motivations.

Stripped of such niceties as backstory and personal lives, the characters are left only with The Issue: challenging [Joseph McCarthy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy) and his destructive campaign against supposed Communists. Much like [The Crucible](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crucible) can be read as an allegory about McCarthyism, Clooney’s movie draws parallels with the current between the media and the government (replace “Communist” with “terrorist” et voilà¡). But to the script’s credit, it works without this “meta” aspect. Execution matters, and it in this case, it’s executed terrifically well.

In its thematic austerity, it feels more like a play than a movie — and the fact that it’s entirely interiors adds to that sense. Some people may not like the film for that reason, and that’s valid. But the claustrophobia worked for me. Had it gone outside, I think I would have applied more “movie” expectations to it. By keeping it close and focussed, I never worried about what I was missing.

What happened

Geek Alert, News

On Sunday morning, I woke up, fed my daughter, and read the Los Angeles Times. There was a good article about Joss Whedon’s Serenity, which managed to shoot in Los Angeles at a reasonable budget, largely because of smart planning.

Yet another reason to admire Joss Whedon.

I headed out the office to blog about this very article. But when I clicked over to johnaugust.com, I was alarmed to see that instead of the familiar brad icon, I was instead greeted by a colored screen and the text, “BunnySlippers ownz u.”

I’d been hacked.

I’ve had my share of technological frustrations with the site over the years, with comment spam and servers going down. But this was different. This was the first time an individual had broken into the site and destroyed things. It was a defacement, like finding someone had spray-painted graffiti on your house.

But it was also more than that — this hacker had gotten into the system, and rooted around. For all I knew, he was still there, waiting for me to fix things just so he could mess them up again. How much had he really gotten to? Had he been able to trace back from the server to my home computer, my Amazon account, my PayPal?

I was pissed, but I was also unnerved.

Had it been my house, rather than my website, I would have called a locksmith to change the locks. The digital equivalent was changing the passwords, which I immediately did. I also shot off a support ticket to the web hosting company, asking if they could help me figure out what the fuck happened.

Then I started cleaning up.

I’m a big believer in the [broken windows](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Windows) theory of policing, which stresses taking care of the small incidents of vandalism to forestall greater crime down the road. So the first thing I did was to replace the hacker’s splash screen with a simple “be back soon” page. (You can see it [here](http://johnaugust.com/sitedown.php).)

I then backed up my entire site, along with the database. From a quick look-through, it didn’t seem like any major damage had been done. I could have started the site up in a just a few minutes, but I was concerned that the same hacker could have brought the whole thing down again. I needed to know what he did.

I should explain now that the hacker’s name was not BunnySlippers. This is my [Josh Friedman-esque](http://hucksblog.blogspot.com) pseudonym for him, because I don’t want to give him the ego gratification of this long article using his chosen handle.

BunnySlippers sounds lame, so I think it fits.

I googled “BunnySlippers” and found he was listed on [Zone-H](http://www.zone-h.org/), a site that tracks defacements. It’s like a leader board for script kiddies. The ethics behind Zone-H are obviously questionable, but that’s not the issue here. What I quickly learned is that BunnySlippers had hit a lot of sites at exactly the same time as mine.

This was a huge relief. It meant that he wasn’t targeting my site out of some grudge or special interest. Rather, I just happened to have some vulnerability he was able to exploit. In all likelihood, he’d never even been to the site. He’d written a script that crawled around the internet, looking for a certain configuration to exploit.

But what was that vulnerability? I had a list of the other sites he’d hit, but they were all offline, like mine. But by using [archive.org](http://archive.org), I could pull up old versions of those sites. I quickly saw that most of them were using [WordPress](http://wordpress.org), the software that drives most of this site.

So I upgraded my WordPress installation to the most recent version. It was kind of painful. I’d held off doing it for a few months, because I knew it would break certain features, like comments and archives. (Although in fairness, the Archives were already pretty useless.)

In about an hour, I’d gotten the site working pretty well. There are still some significant things to fix, but it’s at least usable.

The question remains, will the site go down again? Maybe.

The truth is, I don’t think you can really stop someone who’s determined to hurt you. As I’ve learned from every horror movie, psychos are relentless. You shoot them, and they come right back — if not today, then in the unnecessary sequel. That’s part of the reason I’m not stomping my feet and cursing BunnySlipper’s name. Antagonizing him isn’t going to help.

With the help of my web hosting company, I’ve been able to learn a little bit more about my defacer, and how he did what he did.

Warning: From here, things get a little technical and jargon-laden. I’ll try to pretend I’m writing for CSI, where I immediately explain what the big words mean, even though the actual characters would never need to.

It turns out the weak spot was a file called “xmlrpc.php.” It’s a web service that helps move data, and is part of the standard WordPress installation. Its vulnerability had been [documented](http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/php-xmlrpc-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-affecting-popular-blogging-and-cms-platforms-like-wordpress-1512-and-lower-postnuke-drupal-b2evolution-tikiwiki-etc/), but I’d missed it. BunnySlippers had used it to overwrite the file “index.php,” the main file which generates all the pages on this site.

By tracing BunnySlipper’s [IP address](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ip_address), we can see that he’s Brazilian. (Or at least, his computer is in Brazil.) Following other threads, I’ve found pages that suggest it’s not a single person, but a crew of three people. Hidden in a subdirectory of a German website, you can even see their logo.

Yes, logo. That’s where the graffiti analogy really comes back into play. This guy, or group of guys, isn’t trying to break into air traffic control, or steal money from a Swiss bank account. They don’t perceive themselves as malicious. It’s about getting the respect of others in their community, and recognition for their incredible computer skills.

But do they deserve it?

Using a known exploit to deface the start page of johnaugust.com isn’t such a feather in one’s cap. Other than wasting my Sunday afternoon, it didn’t really accomplish much. There was no political agenda, no artistic statement. It was just annoying.

It was graffiti. And now it’s gone.

Avoiding AD mistakes

Film Industry, QandA

questionmarkHow do you avoid the possibility of a line producer or AD misinterpreting what you wrote?

Do you get to meet with them and say, “These two characters are the same guy, I just wanted to make him a mystery in the beginning. So don’t schedule two actors for this.” Or, “This location is just a different name for INT. JIMMY’S HOUSE on page 10.”

Josh
Philadelphia, PA

Since many readers may not be familiar with the process, one of the first steps in pre-production is to break down the script scene-by-scene, making a list of characters, locations, vehicles and other production concerns. Usually, this task falls on the assistant director (AD), with a lot of input from the director and line producer, along with other department heads. The goal with a good breakdown is to have all the information nicely structured, so the AD can build a good shooting schedule.

The first rule of breaking down a script is to read through the whole thing first, so you really understand what’s going on. And most AD’s are pretty sharp, so they’ll catch these simple mistakes themselves.

But yeah, it happens.

I can’t think of a good example from features I’ve written, but on my first television show (D.C.), we ran into a couple of situations where the breakdown didn’t reflect reality.

A common mistake is not including a character who should be in a scene. It’s easy to overlook a character who doesn’t have any dialogue, and therefore has no words on the page to acknowledge his presence. (Note: If you have a character who doesn’t do or say anything in a scene, your first question should be, why is he here at all?)

From the screenwriter’s perspective, the best advice is pretty simple: introduce yourself to the AD.

This is unfortunately rare.

Since the AD spends most of her time on the set, and the writer spends almost none of his time on the set, their paths don’t otherwise cross that often. The AD’s primary relationship is with the director. She won’t think to pick up the phone and call you with a question, unless you already have some kind of rapport. So introduce yourself, and make it clear you’re on call to answer any questions, 24/7.

Once you have a relationship with the AD, she’ll ask, “Could this scene be day rather than night?” And if it doesn’t really matter, say you’ll be happy to change it. Consult with the AD about how she likes her scene numbers; there are several philosophies about how you add a scene between 94 and 95, and it’s important to be consistent.

And as soon as the first one-line schedule is published, read it. Go through the script page-by-page and make sure nothing’s been left behind.

I am Hillary Clinton’s clavicle

Psych 101

[political chart](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/politics.png)I’m always a little dubious about online tests, which purport to give an accurate assessment of one’s [intelligence](http://www.iqtest.com/) and/or [sluttiness](http://www.okcupid.com/slut) in a few simple questions. But I took this [political-leaning quiz](http://www.okcupid.com/politics) anyway, and was dismayed to find out that a detailed analysis of my opinions on issues of social and economic freedom placed me squarely on Senator Hillary Clinton’s right collarbone.

I certainly have nothing against Clinton. I guess of all the famous people portrayed in the chart, there’s no one I would say is a better fit. But I guess I somehow expected my thoughtful multiply-chosen answers would land me somewhere off the grid, in a special fifth quadrant of Deep Thinkers who are above Politics.

But no.

I’m Hillary’s clavicle.

Looking back through the questions, I can’t help but think they’d be useful when trying to get inside the heads characters whose beliefs are different than my own. For example…

__(9) People shouldn’t be allowed to have children they can’t provide for.__

Who would mark “Strongly Agree?” To me, that’s someone who not only believes government should intervene in personal matters, but thinks there’s a clear economic standard for determining it. No real politician would stake out this turf, but it’s an interesting worldview for a scary Texas sheriff, for example.

__(15) If I’m dating someone I like to know where they are and what they’re up to at all times.__

If you answer “Strongly Agree,” does that make you Republican, Democrat or Stalker?

__(24) It should be legal for two consenting adults to challenge each other to a duel and fight a Death Match.__

And these death matches would be held in the Thunderdome.

You can see the rest of the questions [here](http://www.okcupid.com/politics).