Site Maintanance, you know what that means!

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Still working hard behind the scenes to get stuff figured out.

I am working on putting stuff together that’s going to make posting to my portfolio easier and cleaner. I’m also going to go in a fix some bugs in the theme that have been bothering me for a while.

Of course this means that I am going to have something things moving around, disappearing, reappearing, and/or breaking. If you find any issues, please shoot me a line on the contact page or on social media.

I will also be doing work in my portfolio. I’m trying to find a tool that doesn’t make displaying PDFs so weird, so those might disappear for a while. If you have any interest in my samples, please drop me a line as well.

I’ll try and continue posting with more regularity though, so there’s that. The blog won’t be touched, just everything around it.

Pardon my dust, and sorry for the inconvenience.

This draft is going to kill me…

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I’m getting ready to apply for grad school. I’m fucking terrified.

While I’m not worried about leaving Full Sail with a good portfolio, I’m always looking for ways to set myself above the pack. So, while my FS portfolio is going to be chock full of quality short form pieces, I told myself that to stand out I was going to write a feature film.

Why do I always do this to myself?

I’m about three-quarters of the way through my second draft, and I am hitting a wall. I at the point where I’m making huge structural changes, so I’m basically writing from scratch. Where the beginning of this draft was basically retyping from the page and tightening things up, this is basically coming from nothing.

I know that part of my issue is that this is an ambitious project. It’s the first of hopefully many, but it’s also the one I’m hoping to make a big splash with. I don’t want to fuck it up, and i don’t want to give it to people who I respect as teachers and artists and embarrass myself. It’s tearing me up.

I’m working on it. But it’s hard.

The 1, 2, 7, 14 Formula

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On the Go Into the Story blog, I found a really good bit of advice that I’m going to work on folding into my writing habits.

It’s called the 1, 2, 7, 14 Formula and it’s split into four parts: read one script a week, watch two movies a week, write seven pages a week, and put in fourteen hours of story prep a week. When you put it that way, you have a clear setup for long term success.

Scott Myers did the math:

If you do this, here’s what you will have done in one year’s time:

You will have read 52 screenplays.

You will have watched 104 movies

You will have written 2 feature-length screenplays.

Spread that out over 5 years: 260 screenplays, 520 movies, 10 original screenplays.

That means you could have read every one of the top 101 screenplays as voted by the WGA, plus 159 more.

That means you could have seen every one of the IMDB Top 250 movies, plus 270 more.

That means you could have written the exact number of original screenplays Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, The Bodyguard, The Big Chill, Grand Canyon) wrote before he sold his first one.

All by setting these simple goals: 1, 2, 7, 14.

So I am going to actively do this. I’ve already set up a slate of screenplays that I have in my collection that I’m going to read in the next couple of weeks, and I might do blog posts about them. As an screenwriter, I really need to analyze as many screenplays as I can. This is a good way to actually turn it into a long term habit that can only benefit me and my career long term.

Slow website rebuild

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I’m slowly losing my mind.

I am working to get my site back up to snuff since the incident, but since WordPress is being weird it’s taking a while. I am having difficulties finding a good theme that actually, y’know… works with what I’m trying to do with it.

So, the blog may go through a few more drastic cosmetic changes before I’m done, but I am still working on it behind the scenes.

Right now I’m just going to keep adding blog posts so I’m actually making visible progress.

Vimeo Find: Hermetic Dating Rituals

Video

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I love this short animated film!

The story is as relatable as it is hilarious. The short is only two minutes long, but it packs a lot in there, from the first swipe to the post coital snuggle.

The animation style is also really appropriate. And how hipster is it for me to say I want to base my future interior design schemes around this short film’s color scheme? Really hipster, right?

Well, this is awkward…

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This is why you hire professionals to do website design:

So I tried to upgrade my website (a perfectly fine website that has done nothing but love me) and managed to completely delete it. Poof. Blammo. Backups not found.

This is my fault. I don’t know why I try to get fancy with these sorts of things. I read half a book and think I can wing it.

I cannot wing it. Ever.

But… I was planning on a complete overhaul. A serious reworking of how I deal with my internet presence. Now that the adrenaline is subsiding, this could be a great opportunity.

So, on the day after St. Patrick’s day, I am fighting my instincts and taking this as a sign of new beginnings. A real opportunity to rebuild and fix things that I just let go. So, here we go!