UPDATE

My writing has slowed down significantly lately. Maybe it's due to the covid lock downs. Maybe it's because of my new understanding of the story and character structure in movies and screenplays. It's forcing me to take 3 steps back before taking 1 step forward. Nevertheless my understanding is reaching critical levels that will propel me to a higher and more professional standard.

Moving forward, I will be adopting a new paradigm that I will term as the Storyteller's UNIFIED STORY THEOREM. It will help answers that have plagued not just me but all aspiring writers. I'm going back to fundamentals and breaking it all down to see how it all works. How do you design a character flaw? What is the villain's goal? How to work through the dreaded 2nd half of Act 2? How to weave your subplots in with your main plot and make them complement each other? How do you design your secondary cast (mentors, allies, rivals, antagonists etc.) around the protagonists? How do you add subtext to dialogue? etc. I believe each stage can be represented graphically with a design template.

My ultimate, lofty goal is to design a writing process that is almost like a major car factory assembly line mixed with Pixar. Get an idea, put it through the rigorous design and assembly process, and out comes a quality ideas vehicle. Sounds a bit ambitious, but after putting some initial work into it, I think it might actually will work.

Recently my friend asked me write a top ten movie list:

My personal top 10 Movies  that  are (almost) perfect in what they were trying to achieve with their idea, and sometimes going beyond.

1. Terminator 2 - Greatest Sci-fi/Action

2. Se7en - Creatively Dark and Shocking which includes the Best Unexpected Ending

3. Matrix - Mind Blowing Ideas and Action

4. Good Will Hunting - Best Crafted Script

5. Gattaca - Best Underdog Movie/Perfect Theme and Subplot Construction

6. A Few Good Men - Best Acting and Drama. Killer cast and Aaron Sorkin's first script.

7. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Pure Imagination and Childish Wonder

8. Ninja Scroll - Best Animated Action Movie

9. Amelie - Best  Foreign Film

10. Saving Private Ryan - Greatest War Movie

I have analysed these movies with the UNIFIED STORY THEOREM and was amazed to find most of the principles are true and found in the best works!

Encouraged and buoyed by this result, I will applying the new model to all my future projects. I'm applying it to The Last Ninjas and the Mutants of Chernobyl which has resulted in completely redesigning and rewriting Acts 2 B and 3.

Ping - Short Film

Ping - starring Kristen Schaal - written and directed by Phil Traill from phil traill on Vimeo.

Imagine Impact Australia

It's been awhile since my last post and that's because I've been busy! I've been preparing my application for Imagine Impact Australia.
https://www.imagine-impact.com/accelerator/australia
Worked about two weeks on the rather comprehensive online writing application. I used it to flesh out a lot of the backstory for my feature length idea, Martingale. I'm pretty happy with it overall, other than submitting my excellent short film script, Future Mail, over a rather sloppy feature script. I'm pretty happy with my submission. Excellent practice for next years open submission anyways.

It did force my One Red Paperclip project back a month though. But fear not, I'm working it on right now (and polishing it for the next month). Getting my Talentville membership tomorrow to be eligible for the monthly competition.

One Red Paperclip - pre-Final Draft

The One Red Paperclip script approaching its final form. 131 pages at the moment. Need to cut it down to below 129 at least. 120 would be ideal but I'm not sure how I'm gonna cut another 13 pages with out affecting the pacing and story too much.

But yeah, very happy to almost crossing the finishing line. Will meet the March 1 deadline and hopefully finish the top three for the monthly competition.

EDIT: 

So I got four reviews for One Red Paperclip... and it's the worst score I've ever received. Some criticisms include the length, lack of character arc, unlikable girlfriend, too many characters, too many trades, staying to faithful in the adaption of the book etc. 

I'm going to take a break from the script and return with a new eye some time down the track.

A Company dedicated to Writers and Storytellers

https://hbr.org/2008/09/how-pixar-fosters-collective-creativity
https://www.fastcompany.com/3027135/inside-the-pixar-braintrust

I have a vision of a big company for writers in the future. It would be open to any writer around the world.

Each project would have a project manager that pick and chooses the written ideas from the many around the world. E.g. Sci fi concept with chipmunks in space. The project manager would then pick the best concept based on the requirement. And then they would move onto the next part e.g. the character design of the protagonist.

Each writer would be repaid by a % of the overall participation on the overall finished product.

The would be many projects open at any one time. The goal is to have the best ideas coming from anywhere and the cheap and vast labour pool would result with astonishingly fast turn around. E.g. current estimation of a completed final draft script would need about 3 months to complete if a writer were to work alone.  The open source project could finish it in a week.

And if script sale is a minimum of say 90k, this could yield a minimum of $4.68 million in sales per annum.

One Red Paperclip Update

Missed the soft February deadline, but it's okay. Will be on course for the hard March deadline.

-It's at 135 pages at the moment. Will try to cut it down to at least 129 pages for now and 120 pages eventually for the final draft.

-implementing all notes pass.

-the finish line is indeed in sight!

On Mixing Genres and Breaking Writing Conventions

https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/get-published-sell-my-work/the-dos-and-donts-of-combining-genres

https://www.servicescape.com/blog/144-genres-and-subgenres-for-fiction-writing

Mixing genres and breaking writing conventions is the best way to produce something fresh.

The easiest way to write a memorable scene would be to break a genre or writing convention or cliche. Some of the obvious examples are:
- Psycho and recently Cop Cam - killing off the main character early to mid way through the story.
-Quentin Tarantino breaks numerous writing rules in his movies. Writing rule #1: keep your scenes short as possible. In Inglorious Basterds, he famously breaks this with the looooong milk intro scene, and the meeting scene in the basement. Writing rule #2: Show character through their actions. Quentin prefers to show his character through extended dialogue e.g. Reservoir Dogs opening discussion on Madonna's song Like a Virgin and tipping etiquette, Jules in Pulp Fiction with his many famous conversations (Say what again! Royale with Cheese, Ezekiel 25:17). He breaks the heist genre convention in Reservoir dogs by not showing the actual heist. I'm sure there are a lot more...
- Se7en (SPOILERS - lol) - is probably the best and most memorable example of breaking genre conventions. The two detectives does not catch the killer. Instead Andrew Walker has John Doe walking into the police precinct, covered with blood, screaming for the detectives attention, before handing himself over. This also changes the story from a who dunnit to why dunnit and where are the last two bodies (car ride scene). Then in the climax we have one of the good guys killing the villain out of rage, instead of the usual self protection. This completes John Doe's seven deadly sin masterpiece and the bad guy wins :(
-Memento and Irreversible - events shown in reverse.
-Nolan playing with time - scenes from Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk etc.