A Tale of a Boy and his TV Show.

The Re-Build

2012-01-30T22:30:00.003-05:00

So this weekend ended up being more bust than boom but I still managed to sneak in one pretty cool scene for my Doctor Who spec AND finish off a re-vamp of my pitch bible for Pipeline.

One of the notes that I had a hard time wrapping my head around was 'why does this story start now?'. Originally, I'd started my tale one year after a major shakeup in my world, I wanted to show this dichotomy between the old and the new - these two worlds colliding.

But the note made me see my story from a different perspective - mostly that I'd just managed to leap over a year's worth of some quite compelling Drama. A whole host of stories that, due to where I was starting my tale, were relegated to back story. (ahh, back story - teacher, mother, secret lover...)

So I jumped back a year in my world, starting it the day of this massive change. I'm still able to show my world pre-chaos, before things get crazy, but it's also some great fodder for stories because this world (and the characters living in it) are forced into this quick, violent change.

Yes, unfortunately, this also meant that a great deal of my characters histories had to be rewritten, but I was shocked at how positive this one change ended up being; instantly the ideas started to flow, story concepts, character arcs - things that I couldn't do before, groundwork I had only originally 'said' happened could now be shown.

Needless to say, I'm pretty stoked with how it turned out. I sent it off to Chris on Sunday night and he's giving it a read tonight... with a bit of luck he's going to read this and go 'wow!'.

One of the hardest things for me to learn over the years is figuring out 'where the hell am I supposed to start this story?'. For a long time I used to agonize over details like this but, eventually, I learned that there really isn't a shortcut here.

The ultimate lesson here was: I'm a writer, so... write. Write it out, see how it feels. Does it let me tell the story I want to tell? Does it give me ideas for where to go next? Does what I wrote match what I wanted to say? Do these changes make the story better -- or break the whole concept?

Not that I have to write the whole finished product, just the 'beginning'. Set it up, see how it flows. Change a detail or two, write another few pages.

The best part about this exercise is that out of all this stuff that I wrote, that I might think is crap, or that might just end up being binned, there's often little bits that I can hang on to -- stuff that won't necessarily fit into what I'm writing now... but could be useful later.

Basically, the moral of that story is that it's never a complete waste of time to do the long division. To write it all out, to let the mind wander and play.

In this case, all it took was that one note to get me to go 'oh, yeah... why DID I start it there?' which made me say 'well, let's see how it would look like this... or this...'. All-in-all, I wrote about four different 'new' beginnings for my concept, just to see which was the best one. I probably could've done more, but by the time I hit #3 I was already feeling that 'eureka' moment.

And from there, well, it all fell back together rather quickly... and, like I said, for the better.

Let's just hope that Chris feels the same way.

Anyways, that's all for now,
Cheers,
Brandon

Side Story

2012-01-27T18:16:00.004-05:00

So, I've been spending small amounts of time working on trying to get Pipeline up and running, time that has slowly been coalescing into something called 'done'.

I thought that I had it finished earlier, and then I had a few rather large holes poked into it. And the show Arctic Air didn't help much either (there were quite a few similarities between their pilot and mine).

On the bright side, I took to the challenge with a great bit of gusto and now, finally, think that I've got something that'll hold up to the scrutiny of the masses.

Of course time will tell on this - and Chris has yet to see the neat bits of sleight-of-hand that I've pulled in order to not have to rewrite large chunks of it from scratch - but once all that is sorted, I think we might finally be ready to move onto 'let's go pitch this' territory.

I hope.

In Doctor Who spec script news... well, there isn't any. *sad face* I'm hoping I can get a solid crack at it this Sunday... you know, get up real early while the rest of the world's asleep and empty my guts all proper-like.

We'll see.

Finally, I'm going to look at Condos tomorrow! Very exciting. It turns out that, with the addition of our youngin' (who's now trying to throw his body around in some sort of 'pre-walking/pre-death-throe'-ish fashion), our little one-bedroom has officially become 'too small'.

So I get to go looking at many, many places that I can't possibly afford.

But... hey, once I'm all rich from having multiple shows on the air and awards and such, we can all look back on this and laugh, right?

Right?

Until then I look at the price of some of these listings and try not to imagine the hollowed carcass of my bank account.

Good times!
Cheers,
Brandon

Getting there!

2012-01-25T21:46:00.001-05:00

Alright, sooo, even with all the distractions and such I've managed to get about half-way through my vomit draft.

I'm having a bit of trouble getting the dialogue just where I want it (I'm trying to go with era-specific slang, etc) so I've decided to just gloss over it for the moment. I'll do a dialogue pass later on and hopefully that'll give me what I'm looking for.

Of course because the dialogue isn't exactly where I want it, some conversations are definitely feeling flat and my script is probably going to end up a tad short because of it... but that's okay. With the vomit draft it's all about just getting as much out of you and onto the page as possible... sometimes it's too much, sometimes it's not enough.

Either way it's all about the seeds (hidden in said vomit... yeah, you're welcome for that).

What do I mean about 'Seeds'? I mean to take another pass, go over the vomit draft and look for all the spots that can easily be 'expanded upon'; where more detail or situations will help the script come to life. Usually I find them by looking for spots where I've inadvertently glossed over something or was unintentionally vague - little bits, yes, but sometimes they're fantastic because they can lead down into some great bits of dialogue or descriptions or reactions that you might not have otherwise ever found.

Once you're done a good Seed pass (which usually ends up as a 1.5 Draft) then I go in for the proverbial kill with a 2nd draft that specializes in solid Dialogue pass and scene tightening. Of course you're never really 'done' at a 2nd draft, but with a good outline and 2 passes I've usually got something strong enough to send out and get real (useful) feedback on.

Sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly good about a Seed draft I'll send it out to some of my closest and most trusted readers. I've found that I definitely want to be careful at this stage because if there's any particular place where I'm feeling 'vulnerable' about my script, it's usually here. Even though the structure is down, everything's still very raw - like a skinned knee - and the wrong comment at the wrong time can cause some damage to my interpretation of my own story.

What do I mean by this? Well, have you ever written something and then, somewhere along the line you just forget what you liked about it, or what got you excited about it in the first place? It's something akin to that. I've found, the hard way (unfortunately) that the wrong comment at the wrong time can push the story (or me) into a weird state of uncertainty where I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking when I started this bloody thing. So far I've deduced that it's something of a self-esteem thing (guilty-writer syndrome...?) but the good news is that it seems to be getting better as I write more.

Hopefully it's one of those things that'll just fade with experience.

Anyways, yes, I'm making headway. With any luck this weekend will be quiet and I can knock out another 20 pages or so.

Fingers crossed!

Cheers,
Brandon

Oh, Hello There

2012-01-23T23:10:00.000-05:00

So I've been off doing a host of parental-related duties as of late, trying to fit in momentary pulses of 'writing' when I can.

There haven't been many, but progress has been made.

On the bright side, I've taken the notes from the writer's group and made the changes to my outline - now Mary is left home (for all of 10 mins or so) and ends up in the caverns alone.

This actually works better because we get to have the Doctor with William (which is working out rather well) AND, at the end we get to have William on the other side of the cavern as Mary emerges carrying her son. Far more dramatic/scary.

Plus, with Mary on her own I get to show some of her resourcefulness (and you can certainly see where Josie gets it) - I haven't settled entirely on what these new scenes will be yet, but I'm definitely having fun playing around with the possibilities.

In other news, I had my first session of the New Year for that web series that I created. It's coming along quite well and we actually managed to get drafts done for 3 episodes with the little bit of time that we had. With a bit of luck we'll manage to get this thing wrapped and start pre-production sometime soon (and then I'll be able to talk about it more).

What else?

A bit more of a chat with Chris about Pipeline, a few more changes that need to be made. That might be coming to fruition soon as well.

Lots of irons in the fire and lots of responsibilities to juggle. Looks like 2012 might be very productive -- if I can portion out my time correctly.

Progress. Oh sweet, sweet progress.

Cheers!
Brandon

SOOOOOPAAAAAA

2012-01-18T22:28:00.004-05:00

Even though I'm Canadian living in Canada, SOPA/PIPA still poses a grave threat for the internet I know and love.

I've been chatting with a bunch of folks lately about this coming legislation and, so far, the consensus boils down to either 'I have no idea what you're talking about' or 'we're Canadian, it won't affect us' but considering how much of our traffic has to go through American channels before it makes it to our little peepers, this is definitely something that netizens of all nationalities should be getting educated about.

In fact, as Canadians, we're sort of getting a double-whammy here with Bill C-11 (formerly known as Bill C-32) coming fast down the pipe as well.

Not only would we be getting, essentially, the Great Firewall of China [USA edition] we'll also be getting our own digital exploits locked down and controlled through this DMCA-like clusterfuck.

Right now, as a Canadian living under Harper Government 2: Official Majority (This time it's personal!), it feels like I'm just waiting for the dust to clear.

Thankfully, there is some light at the end of the ol' fibre optic cable.

According to Ars Technica, the Anti-SOPA/PIPA protests today (where Reddit, Destructoid, Wikipedia, BoingBoing and more blacked out their homepages and pointed users to resources to help protest the bills) have had some serious impacts, causing 13 US Senators to pull support for PIPA.

It's a start, it's a sign of something good.

We're still sort of screwed with the whole C-11 thing (unless we can figure out some magical way of making the Harper Government listen to reason), but it's better than nothing.

Still... totally open to suggestions on the whole C-11 thing though.

Cheers,
Brandon

And Away We Go!

2012-01-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

So I got my notes back from my writer's group on Saturday and, much to my delight, the reviews were pretty solid. They liked my story, they thought that it flowed well, had some great turns and, overall, was fun.

Which is kind of funny considering how worried I was about this thing turning out to be too dark.

One of the best notes was that everyone seemed to have an arc in this episode except the Doctor. Now, as far as I can tell, the Doctor doesn't usually have an arc in non-essential story lines... but it seems like something worth playing around with.

The idea was to incorporate the idea that William, the patriarch of this 1930s family, has somehow lost his stature because of the 'loss' of their son. He'd sent Jonathan down there, alone and now that he's gone missing, the mother and daughter don't think all to highly of him.

The Doctor's 'arc' this episode could be to help try to redeem the father.

What I liked about this note was that it also fits in with the overall theme of the rest of series 6 (where, I believe, the Doctor helps 3 other dads reclaim their stature as fathers, of sorts).

Now, in order for that to work I'm going to have to pretty much pair the father with the Doctor... which means taking the mother, Mary, out of the picture.

Right now I have her going down into the caverns with him, which I like, but he ends up spending all his time with Mary instead of the Doctor.

In fact, right now, the Doctor ends up alone.

And we must never leave the Doctor alone for long. He's at his best when he's trying to explain incredibly large-scale and complex things to incredibly normal people.

So that's the BIG change to make. Somehow I'm going to have to find a way to either leave Mary behind at the house (fretting over the remnants of her family that's all disappeared below the Earth) or have her set off on her own.

Hrmm! Maybe that's the ticket there. He orders her to stay back at the house in typical 'I'm the man' sort of style but she heads down there anyway. It allows him and the Doctor to spend time together and it creates some tension while, hopefully, making Mary that much stronger of a character (we'll certainly understand where Josie gets her guts from then).

Nice!

Actually, Sunday ended up being a pretty great day with very few distractions -- I managed to pump out 19 pages of my vomit draft for this.

Of course I'm going to have to go back and change the last 5 or so now... but yeah, I'm definitely off to a good start.

And that, really, is the best part about taking the time to put together a good outline. By the time you get down to writing your story you already know it and if you hit a bump like the one above (or come up with something better) it's a lot easier to make the changes you need because you already have a solid idea of what connects to what.

Anyways, I'm going to play around with these changes and I think they're really going to make this thing even stronger.

See you on Wednesday!
Brandon

Final Outline Part 4

2012-01-13T21:49:00.002-05:00

Alright, here we are, the big finish Outline-wise. I've been going over this thing all week, trying to really make it sing and I've sent this version to my Writing Group to see if I can get some extra feedback before I set off into Script territory.

Fingers crossed.

Anyways, here we are!

Amy and Rory follow and find themselves face-to-face with the Dragon. There is much screaming. Just as the Dragon is preparing to strike, the Doctor steps out of a green-glowing alcove behind the Dragon – he calls it by name ‘Nial Shi’alvarek, Queen of the Ordovites’. She spins in the cavern, padding toward him, curious. The Doctor backs out of the tunnel, back into the Hub, to the room full of eggs. He explains that he knows what they did to her, what the Silurians did to her people.

The Ordovites came to Earth fleeing a dying homeworld. They came looking to colonize it, to find a new home… at the height of the Silurian empire. Her people were no match for the Silurians advanced technology and they were decimated. He reveals that she is the last of her kind, the last Ordovite in existence. He knows her feelings of violation, of loss. But he is the Doctor… and he fixes things. A terrible injustice has been done to her, he understands her rage. He offers her a chance to start anew - to get free of this world. He offers her hope.

The Doctor seems to be making progress, the Dragon seems calmer, placated -- But then the Josie sees William and Mary exiting a tunnel, both struggling to carry the gravely injured Jonathan. Josie calls out for her momma and the Dragon turns, sees Jonathan, the thief. She becomes enraged and charges at William, Mary and Jonathan. As the Dragon nears the locals, Rory says he’s sorry. He picks up the crowbar and smashes an egg with it. The Dragon skids. Rory smashes another. The Dragon turns. Rory knocks an egg loose and picks it up. The Dragon charges him instead. Rory runs into the tunnel – as he passes the Doctor he yells ‘figure something out, fast!’ The Dragon is hot on his heels.

The Doctor leads Amy to the green-glowing cell, says this is where the Ordovite was held captive – that they need to get it back in here somehow – Amy knows just the thing, leads him down the alcove but up to the Amber-glowing, ancient computer. The Doctor scans it in awe, revealing that it’s ancient Silurian technology. Millions of years old. He marvels as he realizes that, somehow, this tech has adapted itself to feed off of a bio-electric field – a last ditch effort to stay functioning as its batteries ran dry. It’s been pulling energy directly out of the surrounding land itself. That’s why the crops are dust, why nothing will grow – there’s nothing left to take.

But… if the batteries just need a charge! The Doctor says that he could go back to the TARDIS, rig up a simple a quantum field generator – the Dragon roars, shaking the caverns. Says maybe just enough to get it operating short-term, recharge batteries to full later. He starts rummaging around underneath the computer, looking for the battery core.

Rory calls out that he’s getting tired. Amy runs off into the tunnels, calling out that she’s coming, telling him to run toward her voice. He calls back, his voice getting louder yet barely audible over the roar of the Dragon. Amy sees that he has a bit of a lead as the enraged Dragon smashes and bangs its way into the tunnel walls – which crack with the force of its impact. He hands the egg off to Amy, almost out of breath and hides in an alcove as Amy continues running.

She calls out to the Dragon, running up the green-glowing alcove, into the massive, empty space of the cryo-cell. The enraged Dragon follows her inside the cell. Amy backs up against the wall as it enters and soon fills most of the cell. Amy asks herself what the hell she was thinking.

The Doctor yells AHA! And finds an ornate compartment shrouded in stone. He slides it open and inside is a faintly glowing ball on a pedestal. Brilliant! He starts changing things on his sonic screwdriver, little sound effects as he rifles through settings. Finally he points it at the battery and ‘fires’. The sonic screwdriver emits a high-pitched whine that fades as the ball begins to glow brighter. Soon the screwdriver’s lights go out. The Doctor says ‘that should hold you for an hour or so’.

“Doctor!” The Doctor jumps, hitting his head. Rory comes running up behind him, calling him. He emerges from under the computer to see Amy trapped in the room with the Dragon on screen.

The Dragon lowers its head at her, as if to get a good look at her meal. Amy looks at her, says she’s so sorry about what’s happened… she can only imagine even a flicker of what she’s been through, of what that must feel like… but she’s not going to die in this room with her. The Dragon screeches, snapping at her – Amy dives to the side, barely avoiding the jaws.

The Doctor’s voice comes over the loudspeaker, Rory in the background – He thinks he has the activation sequence figured out, but it’s going to happen fast, she’s got to get out of there. Amy says to start the procedure, she’s coming out now! Amy throws the egg into the air and runs toward the door. The Dragon turns to the egg, trying to catch it. The Doctor presses some keys on the keyboard, red light.
Not working. He goes to point his sonic screwdriver at it – no power. Amy runs around the Dragon’s leg and jumps over its tail as it swings at her. The Doctor tries another combination of keys. No dice.

The Dragon catches the egg and spins toward Amy, it rears up, jaws opening, fire welling up in its mouth. Rory ‘Fire? That’s not fair! I mean, it makes sense… but!’ The Doctor yells ‘of course!’ He hits a different set of keys then hits the same keys he was hitting. The computer says something in an alien language as the doors to the cell begin to close. Amy runs at them, diving through them just as fire spreads throughout the cell. The doors close, the fire winks out and the Dragon roars, thrashing, freezing.

It slowly curls into a fetal position, holding the egg close, coming to a stop with the egg nestled against its head. Amy stares at it for a long moment. Rory runs to her, they hug and watch the slumbering dragon.

Back topside, Jonathan lies on the kitchen table, the family standing around looking morose. The Doctor bursts in, alright, that’s all settled – batteries charged, good to go. He stops and asks why everyone’s so sad. They think Jonathan’s going to die. The Doctor smiles, reminds them he’s the Doctor. He fixes things… and nobody dies today.

He produces a complex piece of technology and runs it across Jonathan’s body, his wounds heal before their eyes. The family hugs their son as the Doctor, Amy and Rory turn to leave. Josie runs up and hugs them, hugs Amy. Amy finds herself fussing with the little girl’s hair then stops herself. William stares at the Doctor ‘You’re not really from the bank, are you?’ The Doctor smiles and says ‘I’m afraid not’.

Together the 3 of them leave the building, walking over to the TARDIS, climbing inside. What about the eggs? Amy asks, what will happen to them? “The eggs take hundreds of years to hatch”, he says… “when exposed to constant, extreme heat”. Until that happens, the world is safe.

The TARDIS disappears as the Ames family runs out of the building, watching as it
fades away to nothingness. Above them, rain starts to fall.

Fast forward 50 years – it’s a beautiful sunny day, the sinkhole is now a large lake and the land surrounding it is lush and green and fertile. Sliding deep
beneath the surface of the lake, the eggs wait, untouched, attached to the walls.

Sliding still up the tunnel to the Frozen Dragon, curled around its single egg. Closing in on its massive, fluttering eye as it dreams away in the deep.

End of Episode.

Aaaaand that's what I've got so far. Decidedly less dark than I feared it'd be, lots of action, lots of interesting little tidbits. Once I get some notes back from my writing group I'm going to do a final final pass... and, hopefully, start my vomit draft.

Good times!

Cheers all!
Brandon

Final Outline Part 3

2012-01-11T23:26:00.002-05:00

Edits, edits and more edits. Even as soon as I finish writing this bloody thing I get another idea for how I can better express something or how I can make an event or an action clearer. The general 'story' is done, figured out though... so that's a bonus.

Here's part 3 (of 4), folks!

They follow the trail of the TARDIS through the cavern, past walls that have faint and cracked ‘circuit board’ patterns imprinted into them. Downward they go, William taking the lead – warning them to be careful, it’s like a maze down here. Through several twists and turns and paths they go, eventually coming into a large chamber full of football-sized, iridescent-shelled eggs stuck to the floor, the walls, the ceiling. There’s a large patch of open space and a crowbar lying to the side. Amy turns to William, shocked. He says that his family was starving, there was nothing left to eat after the crops died. Desperate, he went down into the caves, hoping to find something to eat or sell… and he found this place. He looks around in awe – there’s a lot more eggs here now.

They continue to follow the trail to another large, open space – it looks like a Hub of sorts, tunnels running in all different directions. There, at the entrance of the largest tunnel, laying on its side and barely visible in faint light of the sonic screwdriver, is the TARDIS. The Doctor runs up, starts scanning it – laughs. It’s fine! He notices some bones, some alien skulls. Not good. He starts scanning the bones, ancient, Silurian. Something stirs behind the TARDIS, slithers in the darkness. The locals gasp as a massive claw slams down on top of the blue box; as a huge, iridescent, green-scaled, 3-eyed dragon pushes forward; its long, silvery teeth glinting in the pale blue light. It ROARS and stands on the TARDIS, spreading its leathery wings wide as the Doctor backpedals.

He raises the sonic screwdriver heroically, light burning brighter – impossibly bright. Nothing happens. He fiddles with the settings, tries again… still the dragon is unaffected. It stares at him, drool running down the tentacles of its powerful jaws. ‘RUN!’, the Doctor yells as the dragon lunges. He dodges the attack and sprints for the closest tunnel as Amy and Rory and William and Mary run down different tunnels. The dragon continues to chase the Doctor, roaring in frustration.

As he runs through the tunnel, the Doctor starts to notice odd little bits of wiring and metallic panels peeking out from the rock. He comes to a fork in the cave system and turns toward a tunnel that has faint, flickering green lights emanating from it. As he runs down this tunnel, the dragon turns and leaves him be.

The Doctor reaches the end of the tunnel to see that it opens into a large, metallic room. He scans the room, discovers that it’s alien technology, some sort of cell – a cryogenic prison. That’s where the dragon was and how it escaped: it’s very, very old and whatever's keeping this place running, it's almost entirely out of power.

William and Mary wander through the tunnels, William’s hand following the wall, the other holding Mary’s hand. Mary calls out for Josephine, half-calls for Jonathan. They move slowly, afraid.

Amy and Rory wander in the dark, careful, nervous. Amy calls out for Josie in a soft voice then stops. What if this WAS Melody, she asks. What if those alien bastards put their daughter through something like this – running through the darkness, alone, scared? “The Silence took our baby, Rory… and we’re never going to get her back”. She shivers in the dark. Rory holds her. Says that they know she lives, know that she grows strong and smart. That’s the funny thing about time-travel, really. You get to know. Even if you can’t be there, even if you miss all the darkness, the sad bits, the chance to kiss the scraped knees, to hold them close… you know. You know she survives… and that’s something. That’s more than most get.

There’s movement in the distance, footsteps. Little footsteps. Amy calls out for Josie. The little girl peeks around the corner and then runs toward Amy, hugging her full on, shivering. She says, in a whisper, that she found Jonathan.

The Doctor has an ‘aha’ moment as he discovers that the ‘dragon’ is actually the last surviving Queen of a small, space-faring race called the Ordovites. This one, this last Ordovite, has been in stasis for millions of years – the Silurian machines still running tests and collecting data. Over time this place was forgotten and now the batteries have started to wear out -- which allowed her to wake up: leaving her alone, scared and very, very pissed off.

William and Mary move down their tunnel, they stop at the sound of rocks dropping, clacking together. They stare into the gloom, something moves. Mary smiles, Josephine! She starts to run toward the figure on the ground.

Josie leads Amy and Rory down a series of tunnels to a faint, amber-glowing computer terminal. It’s very old and ornate -- whomever created this terminal obviously revered the tech with an almost religious fervor. The amber glow is faint, the power waning. Through some sort of screen they see the Doctor in a large room, frantically scanning computers. They try to figure out some way to get the tech to work so they can contact him – Amy and Rory start hitting keys – the lights flash (causing the Doctor to spin in confusion), finally finding an audio switch. They call out to the Doctor – Doctor says he’s in some sort of cryogenic cell – this is where the creature was held. Amy’s about to respond to the Doctor when Josie points them to another, lower screen where a young man – barely more than 15 – lies, moving but just barely. Slowly two figures come into view, Josie gasps as her Mom runs into the frame, she wraps her arms around the downed boy and cries. Somewhere, though there’s no audio on the feed, the echo of her cries reaches through the caves. Josie wants to run to them. She calls ‘Momma’, turns the corner and screeches.

Friday is the finale!

Cheers,
Brandon

Final Outline Part 2

2012-01-09T19:24:00.000-05:00

Hey all!

More coming up here - picking up where we left off. The official Outline is sitting at around 4 and a half-ish pages right now (and, apparently, no it's not 'final' as I've already been tinkering with it again... *sigh*).

Anyways, here's where we are for Part 2:

The Doctor goes into full-on 'Doctor' mode – Not here to take the farm. He’s the DOCTOR. Here to help... with the farm. Amy notices the dinner table and every plate is overflowing with scrambled eggs. Josie asks Amy if they can help to find her brother, Jonathan. Mary takes Josie by the hand, starts to pull her away, William is abrupt: No. Jonathan will be back soon. Rory looks down and sees several bits of iridescent shells. William, unhappy with how things are going, begins to usher them out, they’re not welcome. Josie breaks away from her mother, yelling that he is too lost and if they don’t want to find him, she will. Mary tries to calm her child, we can see that she’s been crying. The Doctor kneels to Josie, says he’s the Doctor, that he fixes things. They’re going to find her brother together. William stops him. No, you can’t. Josie retorts that he’s just afraid of the monster. Doctor replies with all seriousness “Monsters? Well, monsters are my specialty.”

As if on cue, the ground beneath them begins to rumble and shake, that same muffled roar can be heard – plates and the few things not already fallen to the floor (from the earlier tremor) fall to the ground. Mary whispers, ‘it’s getting louder’. The rumbling continues to worsen, the whole house starts to sway. The Doctor yells for everyone to get outside – they flee the house, out in to the dusty noonday light. They hear a loud rumble and then a CRACK as a large fissure opens and spreads out into the cornfield; then another and another. The ground heaves and then collapses into a giant sinkhole – the Doctor, Amy and Rory watch in horror as the TARDIS falls with it. A massive plume of dust flies up into the sky. Mary takes William’s hand, the horror on their faces plain to see – the last vestiges of hope for their son flicker out.

Together the Doctor, Amy and Rory all run to the edge of the sinkhole, trying to see through the haze… no good. Rory says they need some rope, they can climb down. The Doctor sneakily pulls out his sonic screwdriver, scans the hole then balks at the reading. He recovers quickly and shakes his head to the others. He turns to William and asks ‘how do we get down there?”. Josie takes off running ‘this way, Doctor!’ ‘Josie!’ Amy calls out, seeming just as worried as William and Mary as they give chase, their faces white as sheets.

At a rocky outcropping she steps down a perilous natural set of stairs – she grabs a lantern off a wall and disappears into the dark mouth of the cavern. A few moments later everyone except Mary follows Josie in. Mary stands at the mouth of the cave, watching, barely holding herself together. Standing there alone, she takes a deep gulp and then forces herself onward, into the cave after them.

Inside the tunnel, the light from the entrance fades. He pulls out his Sonic Screwdriver and uses it as a torch, the surrounding area is bathed in a blue light. Mary and William stare at it in awe – The Doctor explains that it’s the latest thing from… Paris: ‘The flameless torch’. Doctor remarks that this cave, this tunnel, it’s not natural. It’s very old, very damaged… but not natural. He points to the parts where the wall is smooth – some sort of laser drill. He seems in awe of it. Amy marches onward, past the Doctor, past William (who’s more than a touch frightened) she calls out for Josie. Rory pulls up beside her, asks her what’s wrong. She asks him what he thinks is wrong. He nods, understanding. He mentions that this won’t bring Melody back. She gives him a dirty look and pushes on past him, calling out ‘Josie!’.

Amy and the others enter into a large open cavern, the sinkhole. Above them daylight shines through. The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver and begins scanning the area, he’s lead to a long sliding track in the dust – he says that this is where the TARDIS landed… but it was dragged away. He stops to notice the huge claw-marks in the underside of the fallen rock “…by something massive.”

And that's where things go for today. More to come!

Cheers!
Brandon

Final Outline Part 1

2012-01-06T23:32:00.003-05:00

Okay, so this ended up being much, much longer than I thought it'd be so I'm going to break it up into pieces.

Without further ado, here's what I've managed to come up with for 'The Dragons Of Iowa'.

Outline:

Through the rough-hewn catacombs he sprints, young Jonathan Ames; a loaded, bulky gunny sack slung over his shoulder; contents clicking and clacking together as he runs for his life. Behind him something roars, the walls shaking with its rage. Jonathan looks over his shoulder, terrified and abandons the sack. Turning corners at random, running blind from fear, he slams face first into a dead end and stumbles backward. From the ground looking up a shadow falls across the cavern and Jonathan screams.

The TARDIS appears in the dusty remnants of a corn field. The Doctor bursts out of the doors, excited, expounding about shimmering seas of living crystal, the best massages in the known galaxy. Wait. Wrong planet. Wrong time. Wrong – “What’s that?” The Doctor sees a glimmering object on the horizon and moves in to investigate. Can’t hurt. Just take a moment. Rory and Amy follow along, wondering out loud about what strange planet they could be on this time. The Doctor reveals that this is Earth, America, circa 1936. Amy wonders what could’ve caused all this damage – some sort of weapon?

The Doctor comes to a sudden stop, the gleaming metal now in plain view – an old, metal water-tower half-decorated with the remnants of iridescent shell pieces. A little girl dressed in rags – Josephine (Josie) Ames – no more than 8, stands at the top of a walkway with an empty potato sack slung over her shoulder. She puts a hand to her mouth and calls out to them, a warning. She points and they follow her gaze to the large rolling cloud of brown/black dust coming in fast. As Rory asks what that is, Amy grabs him and the Doctor and starts running, yelling ‘Sandstorm!’ Josie scurries down the ladder, running toward a dilapidated old house, disappearing inside.

The Doctor pulls them close to him, trying to stuff them under his jacket as the storm hits them full-on, a cacophony of wind and dust and sand blows around them – Rory tries to speak and ends up spitting out mouthfuls of sand. The ground beneath them starts to rumble and shake, inside the storm a muffled, angry ROAR can be heard. The ground-shakes start to sound like ‘pounding’. Through the dust a small hand reaches up and grabs Amy’s, pulling her away, leading her. Amy, Rory and the Doctor follow the little girl.

A rickety door bursts open and Josie, her face covered in rags, enters. She tosses off her mask and shakes the sand out of her hair. The Doctor, Amy and Rory enter then proceed to cough, shake, shimmy and pat off all their collected dust. Rory hacks out a rather large glob of wet sand. All said and done they look up to see the rest of the Ames family – clad in little more than rags themselves – staring at the well-dressed strangers in stunned silence from the dinner table.

Josie is over-joyed at the arrival of these strange visitors, she constantly feels their clothing and shoes. She takes Amy’s hand and remarks that her skin is so pretty. Amy laughs but seems genuinely touched by the little girl. The father stands and shakes their hands introduces himself as William Ames, his wife as Mary and his daughter, Josephine (“Josie!” She corrects). At the table there is one more place made but it’s empty. William says they don’t often get visitors, especially since the land dried up and the storms rolled in. The Doctor introduces himself and flashes his psychic paper, trying to look official. William looks them up and down then looks at the paper – then his eyes narrow with anger. He tells Mary to get him his gun; that these fancy-dressed, fine speaking people are from the Bank and they’re here to take his farm.

End of Part One - more to come!

Cheers all!

Brandon

Almost There

2012-01-04T23:14:00.001-05:00

The outline's coming along well now - I think we can almost slot this thing into the 'win' column.

For now I'm mostly working on making this thing as interesting as possible, filling out spots where its a bit light, trimming things that are a bit long.

One change off the top is the idea of the locals having a missing child of their own - one that went down into the catacombs and hasn't returned. I'm hoping this'll give me the theme I'm looking for - a theme that's strongly starting to resemble 'coping with the loss of a child'.

Rather than this be an 'Amy and Rory are mad at each other' episode (like it seemed like it was becoming), I'm hoping that this event -- and seeing how the locals deal with it -- will bring them to the realization that they're not coping with it as well as they'd hoped; that, though Rory's better at rationalizing the loss of their child, they've never dealt with it; let alone had a serious conversation about it.

One of the things I worry about with this approach is that I end up with them having the same 'made for TV' argument that I've seen over and over; that, having never been through this myself, I might not have anything 'new' or 'original' to bring to it. And yet, as a new father, even the thought of going through an event like that fills my veins with ice-water.

The questions I need to answer for myself, as I get into forming scenes and writing dialogue is "What do they need to say about this traumatic event in their lives that they've just been unable to say?"... and "Why is it important that they say it now?".

Of course, that the dragon is helplessly watching her children be taken from her over and over while being trapped in an underground prison... I find myself concerned that I might be venturing into 'too dark' territory... I'm not sure. Certainly, these elements, on their own, suggest it might be too much -- but Doctor Who is a show that regularly mixes Horror and Drama into its frothy Sci-Fi mix.

My end rule, as it stands right now, pretty much goes like this:

Does the story work? Does it make for good TV?

So far I still think that these are both 'Yes'-es (and that, yes, I think about things entirely too much -- which is actually a sign of 'giving a shit'... so... yeah, maybe that's not entirely a bad thing. We over-think because we care. Right?)

Okay, that's enough of my neuroses for one night.

More to come, folks!
Cheers,
Brandon

Off To A Good Start

2012-01-02T23:23:00.003-05:00

Good News: The outline's almost complete! I haven't exactly been able to slave over it this past holiday season -- though I did clock some serious mileage on my pedometer chasing down those Boxing Day/New Year's Sales (seriously, Boxing WEEK now? Yeesh...).

Outline-wise I've been trying to figure out how to make my episode seem like a normal episode, how to make it feel like it could fit in with the current series. It's taken me a bit of a while to figure out how to pull it off, but I think I'm onto something. Oddly enough, one of the most common 'type' of openings for Doctor Who is the 'oh crap, somebody just got ganked!' opening. It's a tried and tested way of getting an episode off and running and it's been in use for many, many years on the series. I like to think of it as a sort of a pre-CSI CSI way of drawing the viewer in that, well, happens to work. I'm not entirely sure how/if I can twist it, but it's something I'm running with for now and it appears to be working.

If all goes well I'll have a decent 'final' outline up for this Wednesday or Friday and then *fingers crossed* I can finally start writing the first draft.

We'll see.

Finally, here's a video of my son ringing in the new year with style.

Cheers!
Brandon

Taking Stock 2011 Edition

2011-12-30T21:40:00.002-05:00

This year was a big year in that one huge, life-changing event happened this past February:

The birth of my son.

Yeah, that pretty much kept me a tad busy throughout most of this year -- and yet I still managed to squeak out a few other achievements that I'm rather proud of:

-- I read through and reviewed a total of 30 TV scripts in 30 days. I learned a metric shit-tonne about the craft of scriptwriting and also came to a deeper understanding of why I like the shows I like.

-- I put together a month-long campaign to get my now very out-of-shape self back into shape. Over 30 days of regular hill-training (5-6 days a week) I burned a total of 32,155 calories, dropped one 1 belt size and lost 8.5 lbs. Not too shabby.

And finally:

-- I managed to snag a Lift Out Loud reading of my Pilot script: Pipeline.

Which ended up being moderated by Chris Sheasgreen (of Less Than Kind fame)

Which piqued his interest so much that he wanted to come on board and help me take it to the next level.

I've since put together three full drafts of a pitch bible (including one Page One rewrite) and one 'Final' draft which ended up getting passed around (turns out that no, it's not 'Final' after all).

Next year we're going to refine it some more and start work on pitching this lil' beaster.

Of course in the new year I'll finally get started on writing this Doctor Who spec and I'm considering posting bits and pieces online as I go... we'll see.

Anyways, I want to give a big, hearty Thank You to each and every one of you who've made a habit of popping on by here over the past year -- especially to those of you who've tried to interact in some way, whether you took the time to find me at a party or sent me an email to talk about something I've posted, you've helped keep me engaged and I deeply appreciate it.

It's been a crazy 12 months (and I have a feeling that 2012's not going to be any less so...) but it's time to close the book on this one.

Stay safe out there folks, see you on the flip-side.

Cheers!
Brandon

Yeah, Don't Do That

2011-12-28T23:14:00.002-05:00

So, a funny thing about the holidays is how quickly the slightest thing can obliterate your best laid plans.

On the bright side: Fun time with family... so... yay!

Okay, let's get back to it. On Friday I mentioned that I might try to write a blog post about 'Don't make my mistakes' when it comes to writing a pitch bible. If this turns out okay I might even consider adding it to the Newbie's Guide over there on the side (w00t! An excuse to update the guide).

Some of the notes that I received for my bible were actually things that I probably should've noticed but, thanks to being so entirely involved with the project... well, I never even noticed that something was off.

First thing, to start this post off on a positive note (as in 'do something that I actually did right'), 'Always make sure your "finished" project is read by an unbiased 3rd party -- someone who'll have no bones about looking you in the eye and say 'what is this?' or 'why is this?'. You might not always like what they have to say, but they will save your ass (and, quite possibly, your fledgling reputation with it).

As far as things to 'Do Not Do What I Did'?

Well, first thing I should point out is that many of these mistakes are completely natural and, despite your best efforts, they will find ways to creep in as you get more and more involved with your project. If you are aware of them then there's a chance that you can catch yourself in the process of making these mistakes rather than completing your project and realizing you've got a lot of weeding to do.

Mistake #1: Forgetting About The Importance Of Your Pilot.

When you're thinking about your show as a 'series' one of the most common things is to start thinking of all the things that can happen, all the stories that you can tell. Sometimes it's quite easy to get enamored with the concept or a character or even a single detail before you have an utterly compelling 'Pilot' episode. Don't do this! One of the warning signs to keep an eye out for is when you start saying (to yourself, or others) "and in the end of the season!" or "midway through the season" or (*facepalm*)"in Season Two!"

NOTE: Not that you can't work ahead, not that you can't go off and world-build to your heart's content -- just remember: NONE of what you have in your head will ever come about if you don't have an absolutely fucking mind-blowing Pilot on lock.

For a Pitch Bible you don't really need to have a whole pilot written (though it helps) but you should have an intriguing/exciting/funny synopsis that will show people what they're buying into; that will excite them for all the other things you have planned.

My mistake? Of the sample episodes that I put forth for my show, the Pilot was, by far, the weakest. Yeah, Don't Do That.

Mistake #2: Getting Lost In The Past

Yes, the other extreme to point #1. Sometimes when you're building your world and your characters you need to start giving reasons for why things are the way they are or how people know one another. Or why the sky is purple. Or why Frogs speak in Technicolor.

What can sometimes happen is this sort of feedback loop where you start explaining and justifying and explaining and justifying and creating cool ideas and events and actions... that already happened. Stuff that's already long done, stuff that holds no Drama at all because, why? It's entirely in the past.

As great as it is to have a fully living, breathing world -- one with history and depth and lots of 'fertile ground' to draw stories from -- you can't forget that this Pitch Bible is to explain 'what's happening NOW'. Where do we start from? How do these characters interact NOW?

If your most exciting stories are in your past then you've got to stop and either a) re-assess where in the timeline that you want your show to start or b) put some serious focus time into the 'Present'.

One way around this is to start extrapolating forward from past events, start using that 'fertile ground' before you get started to make some seriously strong stories and that matter NOW. (I know, sounds like 'no duh!' but... yeah you'd be surprised).

My mistake? In my earlier draft I made WAY too much back story so to counter it in my 'final' draft I cut out and re-wrote large swaths of it -- only hinting at things that I had explicitly stated earlier. It ended up backfiring as well because those who read it were like 'I don't get what happened here'. So, yes, also be aware of that little quirk as well: Cut but also be aware to leave in the essential, exciting parts too. Especially if they help to make your Character more interesting.

So.. uh... Mistake #2.5: Don't over-edit.

Finally, Mistake #3: Everyone Except Your Lead Is Interesting

This one was a huge curve-ball for me. In my head, I know my lead character, I know them cold. I know what they had for lunch that day. I know what their favorite color is and even where they like to be tickled (if they do).

And yet, somehow, what was on the page was just not ringing true, was not doing the job of SELLING them or their view-port into my world. On paper, to me, it was clear as day, made perfect sense who they were. But to my reader the response was: "Huh?"

Even if your show's a Comedy and your main character is the straight-man, they've still gotta be Interesting (yes, capital 'I' there). You've gotta sell it like no tomorrow, gotta sell that there's a real reason for this person to be THE PERSON to lead this show.

One thing I've learned to help deal with this problem is to constantly re-check your lead against every character you create. Even if they'd never meet, how would they react to each other? By playing through these scenarios you're doing more than just 'building character' you're building a vocabulary that helps you explain your character to others.

I know, that might sound weird, but I've found it rather helpful.

You know, the funny thing is that even though these mistakes seem like biggies (because I've gone and hung a lantern on them) the overall feedback about my Pitch Bible was incredibly positive. They're not Huge (well the Pilot one was a speedbump, but an easily mitigated one) but they're important to keep in mind (and have fixed) because this Pitch Bible is going to get you a MEETING with someone who will, invariably, point out these flaws (even if they don't directly realize it) by asking you questions about your world and your show.

Questions that you damn-well be ready to answer.

So, if you can, keep your head about you, avoid these kinds of mistakes and keep on banging on that keyboard (preferably not with your face).

Cheers!
Brandon

Shimmy Shimmy

2011-12-23T22:58:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I've been busy trying to piece together all the rough bits of my 'outline' into an 'actual outline' format.

It's been... tough.

But there is progress - nothing I can share just yet, but there's progress. One of the mistakes I made was that I wasn't all that specific in some parts and I've forgotten what I meant when I wrote certain sections down. Needless to say, this has made for some interesting moments where I sit there staring at my own work, wondering 'what the hell was I thinking?'.

But hey, it's a process. A process with lots of trash-sorting and even more baby-killing (no, not actual babies).

The other point I should note here is that, normally, this whole process is usually done over about 2 weeks (if you're lucky) where (one would hope) you're devoting your day - 8 hours or more at a stretch - to figuring this out. So what's here seems like it's pretty spread out (and it is) but it's also the culmination of an hour here, 2 hours there, sort of thing for the last month or so.

Anyways, after I put the rough edit together into a document I ended up with 9 pages of crap. Okay, well, a whole lot of it is crap.

But there is some good stuff rising to the surface here.

Flecks of gold hiding in the poo. (You're welcome)

In an effort to get an idea of how a Doctor Who outline might read (because, again, we're not privy to such information) I've been making use of a rather handy little website called The TARDIS Index File - a fantastic place where a host of amazing, intelligent people have come together to fill in a host of blanks in regard to this series as a whole. Especially the parts about the series and how it breaks down.

Here's a great example of one of their episode outlines.

It's pretty amazing stuff (and a fantastic resource if you're considering writing your own Doctor Who story/spec Script).

In other news, I got my notes back for the Pipeline pitch bible and, well, they were pretty incisive. There were some flaws that I just didn't notice because I was too close to the project (this is something that perhaps I'll get into on Monday - A "Don't make my mistakes" post for the post-Christmas rush).

Oh, yeah... Christmas. Yeah, that's really coming up fast now; hard to believe that it's only 2 freaking days away (Christmas-Eve-Day starts in T-minus 2 hours).

Wow.

Alright, that's it for now. Go wrap your presents ;)

Cheers all - and have a very, merry Christmas!
Brandon

Pieces, Puzzles

2011-12-19T18:36:00.000-05:00

Alright, so, yes. There we are, much better, all in one piece and ready to go.

Shall we?

Before we were so rudely interrupted by the sudden (and rather massive) introduction of alcohol into my bloodstream, we were working on trying to get this bloody B story into some semblance of shape.

And what do we have so far?

Well, the long and short of it - reverse-engineering the impromptu mini-outline I made last week - goes something like this:

-> Rory and Amy arrive (Rory apologetic)
--> They befriend the locals (Parents - John's the Father)
---> Earthquake/Sinkhole (Overlaps with A story)
--> They want to climb down after TARDIS, Amy gets Father to reveal secret entrance to underground cavern.
-> Amy is bothered by seeing the affection between the family
--> Amy and Rory fight (bicker, argue... uh...yell?)
---> Stop. Realize they're lost!
--> Follow glowing light to ancient alien computer terminal
-> See Doctor on computer monitor, try to communicate with him to no avail.
--> Follow after the Doctor (same general direction), round the corner - face to face with Dragon - Run for lives
---> Doctor almost talks down the Dragon - Dragon sees John with sack of her eggs. Amy takes collected eggs from John, runs past angry dragon (saving John from a nasty death).
--> Rory and Doctor return to alien terminal and work to get the cryo-cell working again.
-> Tech from TARDIS used to recharge the alien 'battery' running the cryo-cell
--> Rory finds Amy - who's tiring fast - she hands off the eggs to him, hides, lets him keep running.
---> Rory dives into the cryocell with eggs, is trapped with Dragon as doors start to shut.
--> Rory uses eggs as a distraction, dives past dragon, out the door as dragon is re-frozen.
-> All ends well, of sorts. Rory and Amy leave, have small moment on the beach 50 or so years later as the land is now a lake.

And, as far as beat sheets go, again, not too shabby.

Of course I realize I've completely forgotten to address a very important element:

What the *bleep* happens to that cavern full of eggs?

Yeah, that's a pretty large plot point to leave hanging in the air.

Now, admittedly, I went with the 'cavern full of eggs' thing for the visual impact, I could make it something more like 'a clutch of dragon eggs' if I wanted to make it easier on the 'this makes no sense' scenario.

Or I could just have everyone eat them up (not much better).

Side Note: For the Dragon noticing John with the eggs, it just came to me that the stronger way to 'notice' him would be to have him accidentally break an egg as he's trying to collect them. Hrmmm... I'll explore this further later.

Anyways, yes, the major idea now is to try and do what I did with the A plot: try to poke as many holes in this bloody thing as I can.

Ahh good times.

More to come soon,
Cheers,
Brandon

Yo Ho Ho

2011-12-16T23:38:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I may or may not have had a few too many at the company Christmas party. Possibly imbibed a fraction more alcohol than my can be adequately processed by my liver in a timely manner.

On the bright side: I rediscovered my love/hate relationship with Jägermeister

(Full Disclosure: I had to Google Jägermeister and copy/paste the word because I forgot how to make an umlaut... It's been a long night).

Incidentally, no, I have not drank much of the stuff for, well, quite a few years.

Anyways, needless to say I'm not in much shape to blog tonight, mostly because my typing has slowed to a crawl as my perfectionist side comes out in full force.

That and it's really hard to focus right now.

Anyways, for now, I'm going to leave things as they are but wish all of you who are about to celebrate this coming Yuletide season a very merry Christmas.

For now, good night one and all. More to come.

Cheers!
Brandon

Oh! Quick update - Got some notes back on my Pipeline pitch bible (as read by unbiased strangers). They are good notes! I'm meeting with Chris on Monday night to go over them in detail and... yeah. Good news!

Swinging For The Fences

2011-12-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

So, now that I've got an idea for where I'm going with my B story, I can try and come up with a rough Beat Sheet for that story as well.

Again, we'll keep it simple and start with what we know.

-> Rory and Amy arrive.
-> Rory and Amy leave.

The difference between this story and our main story is that, so far, I haven't really figured out what my 'iconic moment' is going to be. I have a general idea of what I want for these characters now, but so far, I'm flying blind.

Hopefully during the course of this post something will hit me.

So, let's go with what we do know:

Amy and Rory arrive with some friction already between them, the reason why is not entirely explained off the top, but Rory is apologetic so it's easy to guess that he's done something wrong. We'll learn that this whole trip is intended to help her get her mind off of something.

Once on the planet, especially after meeting the locals -- when they burst in during dinnertime -- to see a gaunt but voracious family eating dinner (which turns out to be eggs...(!). They catch the family by surprise but, thanks to the Doctor's quick wit (and a flash of the psychic paper) the family seems to accept them readily enough. (The Doctor is smart enough to not say that he's with the Government).

During this time, while the Doctor is interacting with children (2 boys and a little girl, who mob him), Amy and Rory talk up the father (John) -- a wide-eyed, excitable man who gets very cagey when they notice bits of iridescent shells laying around.

More rumbling, an earthquake (that odd muffled roar is back)?? The house starts to creak around them. Everyone runs outside to see the ground crack and shift then give way, collapsing into a sinkhole, taking the TARDIS down with it.

Amy and Rory suggest climbing down but there's no ladder and it's too steep - The father admits he knows of a small cave that leads down into a cavern, it's where he was getting the eggs. But there's something more, something that Amy manages to tease out of him: There's something down there. Something big. And angry.

This, of course, excites the Doctor, sending him off toward the cave.

John collects his family, hugs his children and wife, and heads off after the Doctor. Watching this moment seems to have a big effect on Amy, she shakes it off and stalks off after them with Rory taking up the rear.

Once in the cavern Rory and Amy begin discussing the event and her feelings (in her classicly blunt style). She knows that her daughter grows up fine, knows that all ends well... but she still wants her daughter back. She can't believe that he would even suggest giving up the search. This is where Rory makes his case - if they were meant to find her, they would have and they'd know it. He doesn't want to give up either, but he sees what the search is doing to her... and he doesn't want to lose her too.

The sounds of roaring and screaming shake them from their moment - and they realize that they're completely lost. They've been walking and talking all this time and they're lost in these carved catacombs.

In the distance they notice a faint glowing light and decide to move toward it - eventually ending up at an primitively ornate computer. Old tech, very, very old tech that still works but whomever created this terminal obviously revered the tech as some sort of Deity. The lights are faint, the power waning. Through some sort of screen they see the Doctor run into a large room, frantically scanning computers.

They try to figure out some way to get the tech to work so they can contact him but to no avail.

They leave the terminal and round the corner to find themselves face-to-face with the Dragon. There is much screaming. The Doctor runs out of an alcove and runs past them - acknowledging them only briefly before saying something akin to 'you should run now'. Everyone runs, the dragon is hot on their heels.

Finally, back at the main cavern, the Doctor spins - spooking the Dragon enough that it skids to a stop (too cartoonish?) - he goes into his speech, almost wins the Dragon over. Amy and Rory spot John with an armful of eggs -- and Amy clicks on what's been going on (hrmmm... not sure about that one...). The Dragon sees John and becomes enraged.

Amy pushes John out of the way, takes the eggs from him and runs past the stunned dragon (yelling to the Doctor to 'figure something out, fast' as she passes him and the Dragon follows). The Doctor and Rory fly into action the both of them heading back to the cryo-cell - trying to get it operational again (need to re-charge the battery).

Doctor and Rory go to the TARDIS, get (galactic jumper cables...?) and use it on the computer's power core. Doctor sends Rory off to find Amy (who's tiring fast). She hands off the eggs to Rory, who keeps running (as she hides in an alcove with the Dragon rushing past). Rory runs with the eggs, heading back into the cell - the Dragon dives in after him, seemingly blocking the entrance.

Amy arrives, having found the Doctor, out of breath. She watches in horror as Rory is in the room with the Dragon. Frantic, she tries to find some way to communicate with him, hits some of the buttons -- the doors begin to close, preparing to seal the Dragon in (this might be a bit too dumb for Amy to do... will revisit later).

Rory uses the eggs, tosses them to the Dragon, distracting it just long enough for him to slide through the dragon's legs and dive out the door, moments before it closes.

The door seals, the dragon is re-frozen.

Epilogue

Amy comes to realize that there are some things that are just out of her control entirely - the Dragon awoke alone, lost, trapped underground... and then some strange little creature started stealing its eggs (babies...? Too on the nose...? hrmm). Though she desperately wishes to have her child back, to be able to hold her and be the proper parent, she knows that River lives and grows up into a strong woman. She's not happy, but she accepts the consolation. (This will probably not have any dialogue and will mostly be an internal decision... not sure how much though just yet.)

End of episode, they arrive on the lake 50 years later for their day at the beach, a nice day in the sunshine.

Hrmmm... and there we are. Okay, not quite a 'beat sheet', not quite an outline... and yet, well, not too bad for a rough draft.

On Friday let's give this thing another go, see if we can't clean some things up a tad (as there's obviously quite a bit here that could use a spit polish/overhaul).

Not too shabby though, if I do say so myself.

More to come!
Brandon

Places Everyone

2011-12-12T22:24:00.003-05:00

Okay, so yeah... wow, the holiday season is coming up fast, eh? I'd like to say that I've managed to get all my shopping done, but... yeah... no.

People are just incredibly hard to shop for.

In other news, the B story is starting to firm up a tad. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to play out just yet, but I can talk a bit about some abandoned ideas.

One of the first things I considered doing was to have Amy and Rory befriend the mother of this family, a woman who's lived this incredibly hard life and lost a few kids of her own along the way. I liked the idea of examining how this woman manages to keep on keeping on despite the fact that her kids, well, yeah, they died.

Note: this, of course, ended up being quite a dark take on things -- though it had a nice centre of 'feel-good-ness' for the companions in that they know that their child is still alive (hell, they know her pretty well as an adult).

Needless to say, that one ended up falling by the wayside pretty quick.

Though it did end up inspiring me to look into the idea of them befriending someone else in the family - at first the little girl (who's 9) but I felt that it might be a bit too 'on the nose' seeing as, well, they lost a daughter.

So I started asking myself a) who can they best relate to? and b) who's actually going to be able to take part in this story with them? (someone's going to have to climb down into the catacombs with them).

Which then lead me to another realization about series six: there was a bit of a common thread about fathers and their children -- how they ended up having to rise above their own weaknesses to prove themselves as fathers.

Which lead me down the thought process of 'What is Amy and Rory's state of mind coming into this story?' (Yes, my mind makes leaps like that sometimes).

Which lead me to start thinking: Where is the conflict between Rory and Amy coming in this episode, that's going to drive them forward?

Which lead me to this: Rory wants to give up searching. He rationalizes it by saying that they know that their daughter survives and grows up well. There's no use getting worked up, running all over the galaxy -- time says that if they were going to find her, they would find her. But they don't.

This, of course, does not sit well with Amy - she's not the kind to give up and even through Rory's coming from a place where he thinks he's trying to help his wife... yeah, it doesn't go over well.

ALL THAT SAID: How does one incorporate that into the story? I can't be spending time revealing back story, BUT, now that I know this, I can start with that event already happened. The fight already done long before they land in Iowa -- with Rory trying to make amends.

Hrmmm...

So what's the point of this for them? To reaffirm Amy's belief to never give up?

Well, I'm not entirely sure that that's the most effective arc (it's certainly the most expected). Thing is, if you watch the rest of the season, Amy barely mentions the fact that her infant daughter has been taken from her -- in fact, for the most part, she seems to have made her peace with it.

So that's where I can take this. Though, this story isn't about proving anyone 'right' or 'wrong', it's about knowing when you've done all you can, knowing when to let go.

We always like to bandy about these phrases like 'winners never quit' and such but the reality is that there are just some things that are infinitely larger than we are, some things that, no matter how much you 'just do it' you're never going to punch your bare hand through 16 feet of solid Titanium.

And there's a strength in knowing our limitations, knowing when to say 'enough is enough', being able to stand tall, dust yourself off and move on -- stronger and more prepared for the next fight.

I know this all sounds pretty dark, and yeah, I can see how easily it can go that way -- but, that said, hopefully I can balance it out effectively; balance enough light with that dark that it's not some overwhelming, downbeat thing. (Which, honestly, is what it's sort of feeling like to me... like I might be digging myself in too deep).

That said, I remember hearing somewhere that we 'work best when we push ourselves outside of our comfort zones'.

Huh. Well, sounds like it's worth a shot to me.

Let's giv'r a go.

Cheers all!
Brandon

A Running Leap

2011-12-07T23:56:00.001-05:00

So now that I've got a rough road map laid out for my A story, the time has come for me to figure out what my B story is going to be.

The good news is that in Doctor Who one of the most common things that happens is that the Doctor and his companions end up getting separated - which means there's a pretty clear delineation between A and B stories.

So why try and reinvent the wheel? That bit of formula works well, let's roll with it.

But how will that work?

In the part of the season that we're going to be straddling here, Amy and Rory have just had their child taken from them by an alien cult (who they plan to raise into a living weapon to kill the Doctor). They then learn that their mysterious, time-travelling friend River Song is actually their daughter, all grown up and heading backwards in time as they're moving forward (her future is their past, etc).

One of the things that really bothered me about this series was that, all things aside, we never actually witness Rory and Amy coping with the loss of their child -- something that is just rife with Drama and story and all sorts of things... but that thread never really got touched.

I'd like to tug on that thread a tad.

The problem is that when you're writing a spec script there's only so much room you have to start involving backstory. That room shrinks considerably when it's also not the focus of the story. And that's definitely something to keep in mind when weighing the scales -- especially considering that only a handful of people will ever really know what you're talking about anyway.

Which leaves me with a decision to make:

Tell the story I want to tell.

Keep the storyline and find a way to make it not be about Amy/Rory losing their baby -- but leave enough subtext that fans of the show will understand.

Find another story that's episodic in nature but still reflects the theme.

Now one part of the story that I haven't really explored much is this group of people, these locals -- this small town, which most likely will be shrunk to a small farm - maybe a family... (since it's more thematically similar).

Maybe the B story is actually about this small family that's starving in the middle of the Great Depression, their mom and pop fighting to make sure their kids are taken care of.

Damn, this is getting into some heavy shit.

Hrmmm, I'm going to have to think on this some more, try to figure out what the strongest angle is.

More to come.

Cheers!
Brandon

Outline Part 6

2011-12-05T23:57:00.002-05:00

--> Doctor figures out who the Dragon is and who the aliens were.

When I was first working on this premise, I was planning on getting the Silurians into the mix somehow -- actually my Dragon was going to be a Silurian Devil God. One minor problem with the idea was the whole idea of bringing in the mythology, how to integrate it smoothly for those who've never seen the show before (let alone integrate it for those who are fans).

Then I had a conversation with my friend/editor Cameron - who introduced me to an interesting piece of information: those who are writing a spec script for the show are actually forbidden from using the established species/races. You've gotta make your own aliens. Once you're working on the show proper, then you're allowed to play with the locals.

That said I'm semi-abandoning my Silurian idea here. My race will be called the Ordovites, they're a now-extinct space-faring race that tried to make Earth their homeworld back at the height of the Silurian empire. Needless to say, the Silurians - with their crazy advanced technology - promptly went about obliterating them.

The Doctor realizes that this creature is a Queen of the species and quite possibly the last of her kind. The cell where the creature was imprisoned was some sort of laboratory that kept the creature in stasis for all this time -- running tests, collecting data. Over time this place was forgotten and now the batteries have started to wear out -- which allowed her to wake up: leaving her alone, scared and very, very pissed off.

---> Doctor Who Faces Down the Dragon.

Armed with the knowledge that he's gleaned from the test chamber and hearing the terrified screams of his cornered companions, the Doctor runs out to attempt to save the day. He calls out the Dragon, causing it to turn on him - where he explains that he is the Doctor and that he knows the unspeakable things that have been done to her. He understands her rage. Her feelings of violation and loss. He reveals that she is the last of her kind and then offers her a chance to start anew, start fresh - to get free of this world. He offers her hope.

--> Recapture Dragon

The Doctor seems to be making progress, the Dragon seems calmer, placated. But then the Dragon sees the locals with armfuls of her eggs, carrying them away. She becomes enraged and goes after the locals - the Doctor realizes he has few options left and so he sets an elaborate trap, blinding her with rage until she chases him into the cryo-cell once more. With a last-second dive through the doorway, the cell closes and re-traps the dragon. Freezing it stasis. The Doctor re-powers the battery, ensuring another several millennia of safe slumber.

-> Doctor Who Leaves

As the Doctor and his companions begin to leave, the locals say their goodbyes, cowed by this experience. The Doctor and his friends, leave just as rain begins to fall from the sky.

Jump forward 50 years

The area is now a lake, the Doctor steps out into a bright, sunny day, to where people play happily along the beach/lakeside. Beneath the lake, the Dragon slumbers, its eye twitching as it dreams its icy dreams.

End of episode.

And there we are. The first, rough outline complete for my A story. It took a bit longer than expected and I can already see some things I'd like to change/make better... but, hey, progress! (right?!)

That's all for now, folks!

More to come!

Cheers,
Brandon

Outline Part 5

2011-12-02T23:45:00.000-05:00

Alright! So here we are, trying to get this together - the big confrontation.

So they find the TARDIS and realize that they're now in the heart of the Dragon's home. The Doctor is busy scanning bones. In the background, something stirs. The locals arrive, their arms laden with eggs and stand, frozen in terror.

The Doctor picks up a skull, trying to identify the species, saying that the bones aren't that old. More shifting in the background. The locals drop the eggs and then

--> The Locals run away

The Doctor notices the locals running, realizes that he's alone. (Note: Idea - B Story could involve the companions getting lost in the tunnels...?) He pauses, stiffens as he hears a sound behind him. He turns to see:

---> A large CLAW on top of the TARDIS - HUGE DRAGON bears down on him

The 3-eyed creature roars, and rears up, wings spread wide. The Doctor instinctively draws his sonic screwdriver and points it up at the beast -- nothing appears to happen. He fiddles with the settings but gives up as the Dragon lunges toward him. The Doctor decides to:

--> Run!

While running though the caves, the Doctor starts to notice odd little bits of wiring and metallic panels peeking out from the rock. He continues to run, however, as the Dragon continues its chase. As he comes to a fork in the cave system, he heads toward a tunnel that has flickering lights emanating from it. He charges into the tunnel to see that it's a dead end. The Doctor:

-> Discovers the remnants of ancient tech - a giant cryogenic prison cell

He notices that the Dragon has given up chase, in fact, he runs back to the entrance just in time to notice the Dragon storming away. He returns to the metallic cell - this giant chamber and starts to pore over the technology, scanning it, amazed that it's still working -- though only barely. Whatever's keeping this place running, it's finally started to run out of juice. He pieces together that this is a prison cell -- the dragon's prison cell. More importantly:

--> Doctor figures out who the Dragon is and who the aliens were.

But that's something we can get into on Monday when I finish this first draft off all proper-like ;)

Until then!

Brandon

Outline Part 4

2011-11-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

Some good news to start us off.

Monday I sent off the final version of my pitch bible. Last night I got an email back from Chris -- the subject line? "Holy Shit".

In a good way.

Apparently he's really stoked about how it's turned out, so stoked in fact that he's started to pass it around, trying to get some external feedback so that I can make it even stronger. You can consider my fingers officially crossed on that one.

Okay, back to the action.

So when we left off the TARDIS had just been sucked into a sinkhole.

The next logical step?

--> Investigate

Of course, that makes sense. That said, as a 'beat' it seems sort of shallow, don't you think? Especially when the next beat is:

-> Doctor/Companions/Locals Descend into Sinkhole

At first glance there's not a lot here to play with -- except that this is an episode of Doctor Who. And so we get another chance to have some fantastic 'Doctor' moments. Of course he's got to use his Sonic screwdriver to do some scanning -- and of course 'something' has to be off the charts. Which, of course, leads him to talking out loud, figuring it out, speculating. This is a great time to have some character-ish moments.

But yes, eventually they're going to have to get down there to the TARDIS, they're going to have to descend into the the sinkhole. How they do that could be a fun little moment as well -- could maybe have some fun with rickety ladders? The general idea is that once they get down there they're going to be stuck. Trapped with the dragon.

Anyways, so they end up at the bottom of the sinkhole, a tad dusty, maybe a touch bruised and that's when they notice that:

--> TARDIS is gone, dragged away??

Yep, you can definitely tell it WAS there and you can see that something dragged it away. Something big. The group gathers themselves, follows the trail and stops dead in their tracks as they:

---> Enter into underground cavern - lots of huge reptilian eggs.

My first mental image here was like that scene from Aliens, where they walk into the cavern and see this massive clutch of eggs. I'm not sure that it fits tonally just yet -- but hey, for now, I kind of dig it. It's also another cool 'WTF' moment to end an act on. It might not be the absolute strongest moment yet, but nothing wrong with leaving room to grow.

--> Locals start collecting them (to eat)

This moment may not ultimately fit in to the story, especially with them being trapped. Then again, nothing wrong with them trying to take a few with them (for once they get out of here). Could be that the locals decide to stay behind as the Doctor and his companions begin to look around -- they start collecting eggs and returning them to the entrance, where they fell in, to be 'rescued' by the others...? This part, honestly, feels the most tenuous right now... so it's most likely to be in flux... but we'll see how it plays out going forward.

-> See the TARDIS

Of course while the Doctor and company are out and about, exploring this complex web of ancient tunnels, they eventually stumble upon the TARDIS, laying on its side amongst a pile of alien-looking bones. They've found the Dragon's... cave? hoard? Something like that. I'm also playing around with the idea of having very ancient technology hewn into or merged with the rock-face. The point is to give the idea that whatever's here, it's been here a long while. This is something that the Doctor can readily attest to.

Next time, on Friday, we're going to get into the fun stuff, the confrontation. The Doctor Vs. The Dragon.

See you on Friday!
Cheers,
Brandon

Outline Part 3

2011-11-28T23:46:00.000-05:00

Alright, well, would you look at that? My pitch bible for Pipeline is done and sent off to the races. Hopefully whomever gets to look at this thing will be impressed and/or interested in hearing more (as is the best case scenario with any good sales tool -- okay, well, landing the sale is the best case... but you get the idea).

Anyways, with that little so-and-so off my task list I can get back to trying to figure this outline out.

Progress!

Okay, where were we?

Slamming the door shut, they lean against the door, spitting out mouthfuls of sand, shaking it out of their hair. A short, hushed 'gasp' causes them to spin, revealing a scarily thin family dressed in little more than rags. They stare at the well-dressed, well-fed Doctor and his companions with wide-eyed shock/awe. Here we:

-> Meet Locals (aaawkward)

Ahhh right. Awkward.

If you watch Doctor Who chances are you'll see this as a 'classic' Doctor Who moment, a chance for the Doctor to be all 'Doctor-y'. This usually breaks down into 'frantic wide/wild-eyed spaceman talking completely over the heads of the bemused/confused locals'. Needless to say, this is one of those moments.

This is also a great time to learn about the specifics of where we are and what's going on.

So what ground needs to be covered? Time period (though the Doctor may already know this... have to re-research how much he knows about where he ultimately ends up). Of course the earthquakes and the sand storms will definitely be a topic of conversation, possibly also the 'roaring' sound? This is a good place to start setting some rules - who went where, how much people have seen, what they know (or don't know).

I was briefly playing around with a sort of 'The Mist' like scenario, where the town priest is a bit off his rocker saying Hell's trying to come through or something like that (using fear to control, etc)... but I've realized that it's just not going to work. It's getting a bit too dark, and, more importantly, distracting.

The 'picking apart' phase is on-going, of course, but here - taking it from beat sheet to outline - that's the time where I'm the most brutal, asking the hard questions (and kicking myself when I can't find the answers I want).

I've also been considering the setting, wondering if it's entirely too dark even for a Doctor Who story. I'm not sure if I'm at the 'kill your babies' stage yet with this aspect of the tale, but I'm definitely looking to make sure I'm using the idea for the right reasons.

Anyways, so the Doctor and his companions start to talk to the locals where they:

--> Learn about locale (Discovery) - (Lots of weird disturbances)

Earthquakes/tremors, sandstorms, dust devils -- most importantly: Weird cracks in the ground where there weren't any. More witty conversation follows until the tremors start up again. Everyone goes running outside to notice that there are many, many more cracks in the ground and that the TARDIS is in the middle of them. The ground starts to lurch and then:

---> Earthquake causes Sinkhole - swallows TARDIS.

Our first 'Oh SHIT' moment. A large hole opens in the Earth and down goes the TARDIS. Not Good. If there were Act Outs in this show, this'd probably be the end of Act One.

Now that's a decent start.

More to come on Wednesday!

Cheers,
Brandon

Incommunicado

2011-11-25T19:36:00.000-05:00

Hey all!

Sorry for going dark there on Wednesday but I've been in full-on 'head-down' mode trying to put the big finish to my Pipeline bible. We're in the home-stretch now and with just one final list of changes keeping me from moving to the next level, well, I've been pushing to get this thing done.

Fingers crossed, I'm planning on having the whole she-bang done tonight.

It's pretty exciting to see one of your projects about to cross over into a whole new phase, especially as I sit here typing away, polishing the prose, striving to add those final flourishes. Flourishes that are, hopefully, of the 'making-it-stronger' variety.

So, while this week's been a bit of a dud for continuing the Outline, with any luck, I'll have positive news to share soon.

I may even have a little bit to share on Pitching (depending on how this Pipeline Pitch Bible is received).

Anyways, I'm off for now but there will be more to come on Monday.

Back to the action!

Cheers,
Brandon

Outline Part 2

2011-11-21T22:08:00.004-05:00

Hey all!

So when last we left our heroes they'd ventured outside of the TARDIS towards some sort of glimmering object on the horizon. This object turned out to be a bit of a problem due to the time period.

In the last post we had tackled the:

-> Doctor Who Arrives

part of the equation and here, now, we're onto trying to figure out this little plot point:

--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm

For now, in the interest of keeping things moving, the 'glimmering thing' ends up being the roof of a grain silo on the outskirts of a withered farming community. In fact, they can see people milling about. More interesting!

As they start to walk towards the little make-shift hamlet the people take notice then turn and run away. The Doctor is confused by this until they notice the sound -- the sound of rushing wind. They turn and notice the dust storm speeding towards them. (Thus keeping them from going back to the TARDIS).

The Doctor and his companions start to run, trying to outrun the storm but are caught in it, blown along as the ground starts to rumble beneath them as they:

---> They Hear A Dragon Roar (Doctor understands it... sort of...??)
Amongst the fury and utter chaos of the storm a muffled ROAR can be heard, as if something underfoot is bashing and clawing and crying out. Still, fighting to breathe/not die in the dust storm the group bee-lines it toward the first closest house - a barely-standing wooden shack where they burst through the front door and:

--> Hide in a Hovel

Slamming the door shut, they lean against the door, spitting out mouthfuls of sand, shaking it out of their hair. A short, hushed 'gasp' causes them to spin, revealing a scarily thin family dressed in little more than rags. They stare at the well-dressed, well-fed Doctor and his companions with wide-eyed shock/awe. Here we:

-> Meet Locals (aaawkward)

And there we are, my first major beats turned into the framework for an outline. This is nowhere NEAR done yet (much of it is still a bit to cliche for me yet, but at stage one it's a fine place-holder) but, as you can see: Progress.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Cheers!
Brandon

Outlines

2011-11-18T18:35:00.000-05:00

So, once you've managed to get yourself into a state where your beat sheet looks like it makes sense, like it'll hold together as a story, that's when you can start to take things to the next level:

Start building a story.

Now, when you're sent off to put together a proper outline, it's something that tends to take a few weeks. From my experience, most of that time is a bit like playing Tetris with your story, finding the right way to fit the right pieces into the right order so that the larger story you want to tell, well, is actually the best possible version of your story.

Usually the first thing I'll do is go into my beat sheet and, simply, expand each point from one sentence into a paragraph. At this point there's really nothing complicated about what I'm doing, it's all a matter of figuring out the best way to approach this story, looking for ideas or concepts that I may have missed when I was looking at it from the angle of a 'beat sheet'.

So, for example:

-> Doctor Who Arrives

What would I do with that?

Well, one option would be to take it to something like this:

The Doctor decides to take his companions on a trip. Some place warm, relaxing. He envisions wandering with them amongst the prismatic markets of the Gamma Nectaris cluster or floating on the prismatic seas of the cloudkin race. He sets the destination, practically crackling with anticipation. As the TARDIS arrives, he proudly throws open the doors to reveal: flat, barren land as far as the eye can see. Dust devils swirling in the distance.

Great! Progress, right? But in adding all this extra detail, now I've gone and given myself my first significant story problem: The Doctor hasn't arrived where he intended - why doesn't he just shut the doors and try again?

Especially problematic when my next point is:

--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm

So, not only do I need to find a way to get them to stay, I need to find a way to get the Doctor and his companions outside of the TARDIS - and far enough away from it - so that I can get them trapped in a dust storm.

And now you see how quickly this simple task can get very complicated. Every new addition creates a ripple, or a new idea, or an offshoot of an existing idea -- or a game-changing concept.

The simplest way to get them out of the TARDIS is to say, quite simply, that the TARDIS refuses to budge.

Of course this is also, by far, the weakest approach. It's also known as the 'Because I Say So!' approach. Not a very convincing way to start a story.

So, now, I can choose one of two other options: Redefine how I start the story -- make it so that this is EXACTLY where they wanted to end up (doubtful) or give them something worth investigating. If there's one thing we know about the Doctor it's that he loves to investigate, right? So, there's a start -- at least for now. It could be this simple but later on, farther into our story, we find a more plausible, more interesting reason to get them out of the TARDIS. That's great when and if that happens, but for now, let's give them something 'shiny' off in the distance.

Okay, so let's add:

... as the TARDIS arrives, he proudly throws open the doors to reveal: flat, barren land as far as the eye can see. Dust devils swirling in the distance. The Doctor realizes that this is obviously NOT the right place, is about to close the doors and head off again except for that shiny thing. The small shiny thing just on the horizon. The small, oddly-shaped shiny thing just on the horizon that one could just quickly check out and then be on their way.

And so they're off.

Is it 'better' than "Because I Said So"? Marginally. Is it the best possible start? Probably not.

That said, I probably won't know the absolutely best possible start until I get to the end.

So, for now, good enough. Off to the horizon they go.

But now I've given myself another problem: The shiny thing in the distance, in 1936 Dustbowl, depression-era America. Huh. Yeah, that could be a doozy.

Or not.

They get off a good distance toward the 'shiny' object to find a... water tower that's in particularly good and shiny repair...?

Okay, maybe not. But it's a good idea. Something big enough - and high enough - to be seen from that far away.

What else could it be?

UFO? (unlikely) A barn roof? Maybe.

See, this is why it can be so easy to lead oneself down a hole while trying to put an outline together. Small, simple things like this can be problematic -- even worse once you've got a bunch of them all floating around at once.

That's where I'm going to leave it for now, I'll play around with this a bit on the weekend and have some more to say on Monday.

But for now, yeah, outlines... not always fun.

Cheers,
Brandon

News From Progress-Land

2011-11-17T20:58:00.000-05:00

So, yeah, I meant to update yesterday but by the time I got my crap together Wednesday was pretty much a write-off.

On the bright side, I spent last night hanging out with Mr. Chris Sheasgreen (of 'Less Than Kind' fame) going over the pre-final version of my pitch-bible for Pipeline.

To say that it's come together nicely is a freaking understatement -- to look at it from where it started and then see what I've got before me now, it's just night and day. Better yet, after I implement this latest set of notes we're both in agreement that we're pretty much 'there'.

After this draft, we've decided to start showing it around; start getting some feedback... and, then, hopefully, begin the process of figuring out how to pitch this baby all proper-like.

There's definitely a few months worth of work left on it (including learning to pitch, etc) but I'm starting to be able to see the end point for this section of the journey.

Can't wait to see where this ends up.

Tomorrow we start to talk about Outlines! Mmm... oooouuutliiines!

Cheers,

Brandon

Hey there

2011-11-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

Okay, so this last weekend (Fri-Sat-Sun) essentially saw me demoted to pack mule at the Toronto Women's Show and the Toronto Baby Show.

My wife managed to get tickets to both of the shows (they were both at the Toronto Metro Center) and then discovered that both were letting you come back the next day for free.

Now, I'm happy to use my tremendous strength for the forces of good and all... but holy crap are my dogs barking.

On the bright side, she's incredibly happy with some of the deals she managed to get, so, yeah, who am I to argue? (Incidentally, I broke out my pedometer and found out that I walked a good 18,000+ steps combined over those 3 days on the show floor).

Of course, that means I've made zero progress on writing for the last 3-4 days.

Yay!

Hopefully this Wednesday I'll have something far more thrilling to update you all with but for now I don't have a whole lot on tap.

That said, here's a bit of TV-related news that I heard in my travels:

Apparently Russel Tovey - George on the BBC series Being Human - has decided to move on after Series 4. This is sad news for me as he was my favourite character on the show, but Toby Whithouse has been rocking some fantastic scripts as of late (he wrote 'The God Complex' episode of the recent series of Doctor Who), and Series Four is already in the can... so hopefully he gives us someone new to root for before George lopes off to the sunset/takes a dirt nap.

Also: Apparently NBC's 'Community' has been bumped from the schedule (not cancelled, though, as far as I can tell). I'm only just starting to get into the show after many, many people (James) nudged me in that direction (Cameron). Hopefully the show will find its way back onto the airwaves soon.

Ugh. Tomorrow's gotta be a better day, right?

Until then,
Cheers!
Brandon

Filling Plot Holes

2011-11-09T18:18:00.005-05:00

So, when we last met, this is where we left off -- a rough 1st draft of an A Plot for my Doctor Who spec.

-> Doctor Who Arrives
--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm
---> They Hear A Dragon Roar (Doctor understands it... sort of...??)
--> Hide in Hovel
-> Meet Locals (aaawkward)
--> Learn about locale (Discovery) - (Lots of weird disturbances)
---> Earthquake causes Sinkhole - swallows TARDIS.
--> Investigate
-> Doctor/Companions/Locals Descend into Sinkhole
--> TARDIS is gone, dragged away??
---> Enter into underground cavern - lots of huge reptilian eggs.
--> Locals start collecting them (to eat)
-> See the TARDIS
--> Locals run away
---> Large CLAW on top of the TARDIS - HUGE DRAGON bears down on them
--> Run!
-> Discover remnants of ancient tech - a giant cryogenic prison cell
--> Doctor figures out who/what it is
---> Doctor Who Faces Down the Dragon.
--> Recapture Dragon (thanks to brilliant last minute improvised plan)
-> Doctor Who Leaves

Of course, with any first draft, there's always things that're bound to be changed, or tossed. Most often that's because once you get to the end of your first draft, there's a good chance that what's going on at the beginning no longer fits.

And that's where the filling in of plot holes begins.

So, right off the top: The Doctor and crew are above ground, caught in a sandstorm and they 'Hear A Dragon Roar'.

Very cool effect, great idea for a 'moment'... but if they can hear a dragon roar in the midst of a raging sand storm -- especially when said Dragon is later revealed to have been trapped underground, well... yeah. That's a problem.

So, there's two ways to tackle this -- one infinitely stronger than the other, but also often much harder to implement.

The first trick - and the weakest solution - is the 'hand wave'. Toss a bit of technobabble, explain it away as quickly as possible, then bolt for the exit and hope no one notices.

If I were going for a 'hand wave' moment, I would probably play something like the 'Psychic/Telepathic' card. Oh, what was that? Yeah, that roar you heard? That was only in your head. It was a Psychic roar. Oooh! (Of course I'd probably add the word 'Primal' in there too, make it a bit more sexy).

A Primal Psychic Roar!

Of course 'hand-wave' moments in and of themselves often tend create the opportunity for (exponentially) more plot-holes down the line. You see, now our enemy is a 'Psychic' Dragon. Which means now you have to set what the limits of those powers are. What it can and can't do. Who it can effect, how it would effect them. Is the Doctor immune? How does he react? (You see what I mean?)

It's all nice and fun and incredibly distracting -- believe me, I'd end up following this rabbit hole until I'd written a 40-page treatise on the politics of ancient Psychic Dragon culture -- but, ultimately, it's not all that helpful in the long term. (Tho' if you're looking to write an Eragon fanfic...)

The second trick - and the harder of the two - is what I call the 'plausible compromise'. Where you take your moment, boil it down to its seed, find the essence of what you were really trying to do and then rewrite the scene to make it make sense.

Logically, I can't have a Dragon Roar because, well, the Dragon's not topside. I could make the Dragon topside, but then that would change the entire course of my story. Which, at this stage, is still an option (if I feel it's the stronger choice).

Another solution could end up being as simple as where they're positioned. If they're caught in the sandstorm while standing on the spot that eventually gives way into the sinkhole (that swallows the TARDIS), you could have a moment where they're in a sandstorm, the ground shakes beneath them and you hear a muffled roar. This gives a bit more of a setup for the actual physical event of the sinkhole. It also tells us that there's something underground. Later, with the locals, they can talk about repeated earthquakes.

See, now the sinkhole isn't just a 'sinkhole' it's the place where the Dragon was trying to make its escape from the cavern.

So, for now, that seems like a stronger option to me, so that replaces the earlier point.

---> They Hear A Dragon Roar (Doctor understands it... sort of...??)

becomes

---> The ground shakes beneath them, they hear a Primal (!) muffled roar from the Earth itself.

You can even keep the note about the Doctor 'sort of' being able to understand what it said. (Though I'm sure this 'understanding' would be more akin to 'what the *bleep*')

Now, yes, I know it seems like a small thing here, that I've just spent a whole lot of text to justify the changing of a few words... but it also allowed for the thought process to get underway, which allowed me to ask some good questions which, in the end, helped me to strengthen my understanding of my own story (and how I want to tell it).

I won't do the rest of the points here, as I'm sure you've got the gist of where I'm going with this. But if you're not doing it, if you've never been a 'beat sheet' kind of person, maybe this is a great time to give it a go for your next tale.

Have some fun with it. Explore.

Anyways, that's all for now -- see you Friday.

Cheers!
Brandon

Aaaand Beat Sheet!

2011-11-07T23:34:00.000-05:00

So, one thing I just happened to realize: I never went and counted the number of major beats in the various stories of the other episodes. Luckily, since I filled out that spreadsheet all nice and lovely-like, it shouldn't be too much trouble to see what the major beats are.

Of course, since I've not yet re-installed MS Excel on my laptop, that'll have to wait for another night.

Until then, we can still have some fun playing with beat sheets, trying to come up with something that 'feels' right (and then I can compare that number to the actual number of beats in the episode).

When last we left, we had:

-> Doctor Who Arrives
--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm
---> They Hear A Dragon Roar (Doctor understands it... sort of...??)
--> Seek Shelter
-> Find Hovel
--> Meet Locals (aaaawkward)
---> Doctor Who Faces Down A Dragon.
-> Doctor Who Leaves

Of course, that just won't do. So let's keep going.

Now, one thing that I realized is that 'seek shelter/find hovel' can pretty much be combined into one beat:

-> Doctor Who Arrives
--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm
---> They Hear A Dragon Roar (Doctor understands it... sort of...??)
--> Hide in Hovel
-> Meet Locals (aaawkward)
--> Learn about locale (Discovery) - (Lots of weird disturbances)
---> Earthquake causes Sinkhole - swallows TARDIS.
--> Investigate
-> Doctor/Companions/Locals Descend into Sinkhole
--> TARDIS is gone, dragged away??
---> Enter into underground cavern - lots of huge reptilian eggs.
--> Locals start collecting them (to eat)
-> See the TARDIS
--> Locals run away
---> Large CLAW on top of the TARDIS - HUGE DRAGON bears down on them
--> Run!
-> Discover remnants of ancient tech - a giant cryogenic prison cell
--> Doctor figures out who/what it is
---> Doctor Who Faces Down the Dragon.
--> Recapture Dragon (thanks to brilliant last minute improvised plan)
-> Doctor Who Leaves

So, here we go - a good start for a run at the fence. There, in all its basic text glory, is ... well, the A PLOT for the episode. It's still a good long ways off from a STORY, but for an idea of 'what happens' in the episode, that's a good start.

Of course, the next step is to tear it apart utterly.

But that's something we can tackle on Wednesday (I already see at least one plot hole that'll need to be filled). Do you see it?

Anyways, more to come!

Cheers,
Brandon

The Next Thing

2011-11-04T23:08:00.002-04:00

Okay, so my mind's not quite working tonight -- been trying to write this post for the last few hours but I think I've had far too much sugar and caffeine today. I'm not sure why, I'm normally not much for caffeine (and I prefer my sugar in 'scotch' format) but nevertheless, my mind seems unable to focus on anything outside of how little I'm able to focus on anything.

Incidentally, on a side note, I found a really neat site that shows a bunch of different beatsheets from a wide assortment of films and TV series. Check out 'Beat Sheet Central' here: http://www.beatsheetcentral.com/.

Monday I'll post a full rough beat sheet for my A story and we'll see how that goes. I've been playing around with a bunch of different concepts so hopefully by then I'll have some sort of amalgam that really grabs me.

In other news, I just reformatted my laptop... and it ended up being a rather profound experience. See, over the last year or so I started putting all this random shit on my laptop and over said last year it started to slow down on me, eventually getting to the point where I couldn't work at all. I'd turn the bloody thing on and it'd just sit there, loading... then loading... then chugging... then loading.

Now this laptop isn't the fastest thing in the world -- a 3rd-hand Portege 2000 with an old Pentium 3 chip and 256 megs of ram. It was certainly never designed to watch Youtube (16 megs of video RAM!)... and yet, as a writing tool, I dunno, it's just fantastic. The screen, the keyboard, everything just melds in this way where I get into this zone. My writing zone.

And over time, with various bad decisions, it got corrupted. By the end, Windows would barely load. Worse, instead of sitting down and making it right, I just said 'crap' and let it lay that way.

And so it laid there for the last few months, just taking up space, collecting dust. My morning writing sessions withered. My weekend writing sessions crumbled.

But last night I pulled this lil' wonder down off the shelf, I'm not entirely sure why... maybe I was curious, maybe I'd just gotten fed up...

I carefully, painfully, copied what I could from the drive onto my USB key (Which took several hours, with several restarts due to overheating) and then I wiped it clean. Full-on clean re-install.

Which took another hour or so.

But when it was all said and done, my little laptop -- this silly old hunk of plastic and silicon -- was back. Not exactly 'zippy'... it'd never been 'zippy'... but I could type in real-time, and that was more than good enough for me.

It's sort of weird how distractions can pile up around us, can pull us in a dozen different directions and ultimately keep us from getting anything done. I sometimes feel frozen like that, like I've got so much I want to do, so much I want to accomplish and so little time to do it in. I end up pushing myself, spreading myself thin, and then wonder why projects are languishing.

Keeping all the balls in the air is tough; keeping yourself from putting them there in the first place... well, that's a good bit tougher.

Sometimes it's good to just hit the reset button, to start fresh and give yourself another chance. To focus on what you really want to be doing.

More to come.

Until then,

Cheers!
Brandon

Beat Sheets Are Fun

2011-11-02T23:56:00.004-04:00

Oh yes, Beat Sheets... they were the bane of my existence, once.

For a long time I never understood why the hell people bothered to write them -- of course, at the time, I tended to just start writing my script from the ground up and edit it on the fly. Sometimes it'd work out alright, sometimes it wouldn't. Often what would happen is I'd get a first draft done, look at it and then do massive, massive rewrites.

That, hopefully, is what a beat sheet (and Outline) will help you to avoid.

Essentially, a beat sheet is a half-brainstorming, half-organizational tool -- you're slotting in ideas and playing with a progression of beats to get a sense of how you want your story to go.

Think of it like plunking on a xylophone before hitting the piano before hitting the main stage with the full orchestral backing.

This is where you get to play -- get to go 'okay, that's cool, but what if...?!' without getting hemmed-in by your already-existing script.

You're working with a few words or a phrase instead of paragraphs and pages.

Of course, one of the classic writer's problems is sitting there staring at a blank page and going 'uh, okay, where do I begin?'.

Truth be told, everyone finds their own answer to that question; how to get the page to 'open up' for them.

But since we're all here anyway, this's how I tend to approach the problem:

The first thing I do is think of one thing I absolutely want to have happen in my episode. Remember: Broad strokes here. Big events only. These are going to be your nodes, your way-points through the story as you get deeper in and into the finer and finer details.

Okay, first thing that I MUST have in my episode:

-> Doctor Who Faces Down A Dragon.

Where in the story is that? Who knows? Doesn't matter. Not yet. We know it's going to be in there though... so that's a start.

Also, give yourself a start and an ending. If you don't know what exactly that is yet, that's okay, it's just to give you a bit of a way to help limit your scope. Help you focus.

So we add:

--> Doctor Who Arrives
--> Doctor Who Leaves

Which means we now have our first story. It's a shit story right now, but there we go:

--> Doctor Who Arrives
---> Doctor Who Faces Down A Dragon.
--> Doctor Who Leaves

If we were writing a 5 minute short, there you go. You're done. Those are your beats.

We're, of course, going to need to go deeper.

So, how do we do that?

What I do here is one of two things:

1) I think of another event that I REALLY want to have happen in my story or
2) I try to imagine an event immediately preceding or proceeding one of the other events on the tree.

So... what immediately happens after Doctor Who Arrives? Let's get to it:

--> The Doctor and his companions are greeted by the locals
--> They go exploring
--> They are attacked
--> They get lost

Now, let's pause here for a second -- please realize that on their own it's not all that interesting. It's all very bland. That's where you use what you've already decided about your locale, time period, etc to help you spice it up.

Since this is happening in 1930's Iowa, great depression, dustbowl, what location/time specific events can we add?

--> Get caught in a Dust Storm
--> Plague of locusts
--> wander in the 'desert'

Obviously these are a bit more detailed than 'broad strokes' but they help you get into the mental 'mood' of your story and help get the juices flowing for more ideas along those lines.

So, let's try this:

-> Doctor Who Arrives
--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm
---> Doctor Who Faces Down A Dragon.
-> Doctor Who Leaves

One other thing you may notice that I try to do, even at this stage, is to create a 'flow' of events.

So, once I start to actually put things in, I'm trying to create for myself a sense of progression and tension. For myself, I do something as simple as this:

->
-->
--->
-->
->

Always trying to be moving in waves, building towards something. Once you get into doing B stories and C stories, once you create several 'waves' and then integrate them, it can make for some really exciting story progression.

Anyways, I digress.

We've got a good event off the top... but is it the best? That'll be your mantra once you're done and working on a second and third and fourth draft.

For now, let's move on.

We're going to need a pre-major event. Something to bring us in deeper to the story, something that will set the tone for the coming Dragon Confrontation.

--> They make a startling discovery

Wow. Crazy hard. This Beat Sheet stuff is nuts, right?

Okay, but what could that 'startling discovery' be? Well, you do need to let the audience know that a dragon actually exists. Maybe your startling discovery involves foreshadowing. Or maybe it involves one of them stepping into dragon poo? (uh, no, I won't be using that).

Or, Maybe:
--> They hear a dragon roar

or

--> They find the charred remains of a local townie named Buster (how's that for specific?)

or

--> They actually come face to face with a full-blown dragon and run for their lives

Just to keep things moving, lets say: Option A (while keeping an eye on Option B for later...)

So now we've got:

-> Doctor Who Arrives
--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm
---> They Hear A Dragon Roar
---> Doctor Who Faces Down A Dragon.
-> Doctor Who Leaves

So, now they're trapped in a dust storm, blinded by sand and from somewhere, all around them, they hear a Dragon Roar.

Cool.

Now what could be a neat outcome of that?

--> The Doctor Understands the Language.

Hell, the man can understand Baby. Why not? Maybe he 'understands' it in the same way you might 'understand' olde English. Not entirely understanding what it is saying, but knowing enough about the expression to know that it is DAMNED OLD!

Ooooookay.

So now you want them to

--> Find shelter from the storm

Where they end up

--> in a small Hovel

Which is, of course, full of half-starved 1930's-era Iowans. Seeing the Doctor and his companions in their current clothing configuration -- AHA! our first person-on-person conflict!

--> They meet the Locals (aaaawkard)

So now we have:

-> Doctor Who Arrives
--> Get Caught In A Dust Storm
---> They Hear A Dragon Roar (Doctor understands it... sort of...??)
--> Seek Shelter
-> Find Hovel
--> Meet Locals (aaaawkward)
---> Doctor Who Faces Down A Dragon.
-> Doctor Who Leaves

Can you see how the story starts to build? From just a few small points they start to take on a logical life of their own, even at this simple stage.

Like finding a raw, musical hook it just FEELS right.

That's how you know that you're on the right track for the story you want to tell.

And, if you'll notice, we've also created our first full 'wave'. Lull building to high-point to lull. A natural progression and our first 'building block' of our story.

Not too freaking shabby if you ask me.

Anyways, it's getting late and I'm skirting the midnight mark as it is so, I'm going to go off and play with this some more.

That said, I hope I've given you all a small but helpful rundown on Beat Sheets and how they can help you organize your thoughts and your story; help you focus and find the things that are most important to you and the story you want to tell.

Cheers folks and happy writing!
Brandon

All Hallow's Eve

2011-10-31T22:52:00.003-04:00

If you're anything like me, you love a good scare.

So, for this Halloween, I'd like to share with you some of my favourite scary short films.

Enjoy! (And stay safe!)
Brandon

There Are Monsters

Deus Irae

The Closet

In A Corner - (From the creator of Ju-On before there was a Ju-On)

Bedfellows

8 Butterflies

8 BUTTERFLIES from Comatose / Nick Narciso on Vimeo. And this one, well, it's not too scary, but it's still pretty darned cool:

The Facts In The Case Of Mister Hollow

In the Dark

2011-10-28T22:37:00.004-04:00

Okay, so what've we learned so far?

It's really, really hard to write when there's a baby crying right behind you.

Well, yes, that too. What else?

A teething infant causes a significant number of sleepless nights over the week which all culminate into several, unexpected moments of visual and auditory hallucination.

Seriously, I heard someone call my name at work today -- long after everyone had gone home for the day... weeeird.

Especially weird 'cause I heard it clear as day but didn't recognize the voice. Also, those brief moments of movement out of the corner of my eye. Like shadows flitting about, doing shadowy things.

Yeah, fun!

On the bright side, we've started feel the uneven ridges of young, sharp teeth poking up, barely restrained by gum-line. Our son is displeased with this development, and, looking at it from his perspective, I can't really blame him.

You see, outside of all the wonderful joys of having your mouth and jawline ravaged by the onset of razor-sharp baby-teeth, one of the other side effects is a little something called 'Night Terrors'.

Now, being a Storyteller (one that started off with a strong Horror bent) I'm well acquainted with the concept of what a 'Night Terror' is. It's like an ultra-intense nightmare, one that you can't wake up from.

It's a classic theme and hundreds of wonderful horror stories have come from this simple concept -- this inescapable nightmare.

Yes, it's all well and good on paper.

And then you see the real deal. Face to face.

You witness your formerly-placid child, this little roly-poly half-pint, jolt upright in their crib, screaming like they're being murdered.

Now, you've heard them cry before. Sure. You've even heard them cry when they've hurt themselves, gotten a little boo-boo.

But nothing prepares you for this... sound. A shriek is the only true way to describe it. You realize that it's more than just a scream, this child is afraid for their very life.

From zero to 'HOLYSHITWHATTHEFUCK!?' this kid is flipping out, flailing, crying, hitting. Whatever's in there, your child is fighting it tooth and nail.

I'd never seen a baby fight for its life before this last week, but my God if it isn't the scariest goddamned thing I've ever witnessed.

Even worse, you jump out of bed, scoop the little one in your arms, hug and hold and whisper and sing and dance and pat and kiss and... they're not there with you. Wherever they are, they're lost in the mist, trapped in a battle that rages on without you.

My son looked at me a few days ago, in the midst of a full-blown night-terror; his eyes wide open but seeing through me... and whatever he saw scared the utter shit out of him. He flailed like he'd been caught, like the slavering jaws were moments from closing 'round his head.

For a moment I truly believed that I was the enemy.

That somewhere, somehow, someway, I'd done something wrong, unleashed some unknown... thing... upon him. I racked my brain: he's a baby, he's never seen anything more menacing than a red plastic spoon, what the hell could be tormenting him so fiercely?

Still I held him, rocking him, calling to him, patting him; wondering how the battle was going, if the clashing of steel would come out in his favour.

And, slowly, he came back to us. Slipping back to silence as if he'd never been bothered, sliding a thumb back into his mouth, sucking away as his head lolled and my heart thudded in my chest.

We laid him beside us then, as if somehow, my wife and I could offer some sort of protection; some bastion from his dream usurpers.

I'd like to say that it never happened again, that we haven't had to undertake this battle over and over again, a few times a night for the last week or so... but, alas, that's not the case.

Though we've gotten better at it, steeled our hearts against it, when we sleep now we wait for that sound; that... shriek.

And when it comes, we're there, laying beside him; helplessly watching as this formless foe wreaks havoc on our little one. Helpless but to watch and soothe and cuddle the transition from wounded to whimper to whisper.

He's sleeping now, finally, my little guy. But even now I feel my pulse racing, waiting for the attack to come. Remembering those vacant eyes as they stared through me to that unseen beast.

Here, by his side, I wait.

And in the darkness, I know horror.

Sleep well, my friends.
Brandon

Storming The Brain

2011-10-26T23:39:00.000-04:00

Okay, so, brainstorming. A timeless, classic way to flesh out a story idea or concept.

So, what's on the docket for today? What problem am I trying to crack here? (The first task in any brainstorming session: what am I trying to accomplish?)

What do I need to do?

The Doctor
Amy Pond
Rory

What happens in my story?

Broad strokes here, beats... anything goes, may or may not be used, just run with it. NOTE: Below contains the final form of several passes all in one (ideas/critiques/expansions).

- An attack - obviously
- Someone lost - duh
- betrayal?
- a new friend
- hunters - a mob...?
- a showdown (too Western?) -- Genre imitation/homage?
- rebels -- too much?
- a sound defeat -- a retreat -- loss of someone/thing close...!
- a plan -- 'cause there's always a plan
- a bowtie -- 'cause bowties are cool
- Aliens? -- a mothership? No, too big. Alien tech. Sure. -- An alien prison. -- A forgotten alien prison.
- an escape -- can't have a prison without an escape.
- wardens? -- too much. Forgotten, remember?
- a sense of loss -- too intense for a spec? Maybe keep it upbeat?
- Confrontation -- Doctor Vs. Dragon -- Sonic screwdriver... vs. Dragon Tech? -- Techno Dragon? -- Cyborg Dragon?!... Okay, breathe.
- Running -- Always running. Hell, it's right in the show intro ("And we've been running ever since").
- Some Action -- Fast-paced, low to the ground, fun but gritty.
- Something to Fear -- It's a freaking Dragon. A Big, freaking, alien, angry Dragon. -- Death-Ray eyes?? Oooh...
- A Death -- of course. Wouldn't be a Doctor Who without a death -- Dragon-bait. Like a terrestrial Jaws scene?
- Some sort of Compassion/Kindness -- Do we all make up and be best friends in the end? -- Ethical/Moral problem? Do we go too far? -- Humanity the real monster? -- Ask the Question! Nope, still the Dragon. Close second, tho'.
- An Amy Quest -- B story -- looking for distraction, looking to keep her mind off something bad -- takes to local kids? -- Maybe a kid named 'Harmony' or something music-based, to strike a chord? -- Drawn into something deeper, forced into a choice. This or that. No solid 'right' answer. She wishes with all her might it was an easy, solid, I-can-be-sure-of-this answer.
- A... Rory? -- Just happy to be there! Okay, no. -- Torn. Wants to help, not sure how. -- Dragons?! COOL! -- Lazer Death-Ray eyes, not cool! -- Who is he now?: The man who waited -- Feeling outside, she won't let him in -- she can't articulate it. Or won't. -- Why?
- The Doctor -- Wanting desperately to make everything right -- OR wanting desperately to pretend like nothing's wrong. -- That it can always be solved. He always finds the answer. He's the Doctor. -- Believing his own hype too much? -- Genuinely surprised by Dragon -- Very old -- Doesn't know much, if anything about it? Shooting from the hip (as it were)?
- The Dragon -- Freedom. Wanting out -- Angry -- Hungry -- Tired -- Alone -- Last of its kind? (Does/would it know this?) -- Sentient? How Sentient? (Dogs/Dolphins/People?) or unknowable? Thinks in entirely different way...? -- Brain in Tail? Multiple brains like Dinosaurs -- Dragon precursor/off-shoot of Dinosaurs? -- Space-faring Dinosaurs escaped Earth, return to it? (NOTE: new comic idea).
- The Locals -- Downtrodden, beaten -- Desperate -- Looking for an out, a win. -- Hungry. -- Not expecting to find a freaking Dragon in their backyard.
- A Grand Finale -- Collapsing Cave? -- Aquifer...? -- Dragon vs. TARDIS? (Dragon Breath? Dragon BITE?) -- Freedom or Death Sentence -- Not sure which one -- A Pyrrhic victory? (too downbeat?) -- TARDIS whoop-whoops off to the sunset...?

Hrmm...

Okay, so, yeah, if you made your way through that, you've just gotten a small glimpse into my mind as of late. Disjointed? Yeah, that's how things tend to roll... but I think I found a few interesting concepts to play with.

Maybe enough to even take an early stab at a beat sheet!

Yeah... maybe.

Anyways, that's all for now, folks! See you on Friday.

Cheers,
Brandon

And We're Back

2011-10-24T17:36:00.002-04:00

Hey folks!

So, yeah, Friday ended up being a wash - from being swamped at work to actually managing to get out to my first 'Band Practice' in about 8 months, I ended up stumbling home around the midnight mark.

It was a fantastic time out there, seeing some friends, catching up with the world at large (a quick shout-out to Ryan, Chris and Nat, some real-life, bona-fide readers of the blog -- hey folks!).

Now that all that free tequila has worn off (thanks Karen!) I'm back in the saddle and starting to get a better idea of where I'm heading.

In case you didn't know, 'Band Practice' is Inkcanada's monthly meetup of Toronto-ish Writers, Producers, Directors and more to get together and just be social. It's a great way to meet (and have a beer with) people you may, one day, be working with.

Anyways, one of the great things I experienced at last Friday's 'Band Practice' was actually the reaction I got when started telling people about the Doctor Who spec script I was working on.

See, sometimes you just know you're onto a good idea... and sometimes that idea is reinforced in the most simple and casual of ways.

So there I am, being introduced to some fellow writers, shaking hands and such when the conversation pops up to 'So, what are you working on?'. We all chat a bit about what we're up to, then it turns to (as it usually does) what we're all speccing at the moment. A Castle here, a Community there, possibly a Justified, maybe a Good Wife; we all nod in agreement that they're solid choices. And then they look at me and I say 'Doctor Who'.

I haven't seen so many eyes light up so fast in one conversation before. (Incidentally, I was also surprised that so many knew of the show). Now, yes, please let me apologize ahead of time if I come off as sounding smug here, but these are the rare moments that every writer secretly wishes for: to come up with something that's genuinely interesting.

And that's what appears to have happened because, off the top I had a flurry of questions - (and yes, 'why?' was one of them) - but one thing I noticed (especially after I sold it as 'Doctor Who fights a Dragon') was how many people started smiling. Like ear-to-ear grins.

A small thing, but it was plain to see. People were interested, they wanted to hear more.

Yes folks, a good high-concept idea is hard to come by -- but when you find one that works... celebrate.

Of course, now I have to go out there and live up to that idea. I've gotta write a script that's going to be 'kick-in-the-pants' awesome.

But, for now, it feels good to feel reinforced in my decision; to know that I'm onto something here.

Wednesday is brainstorm day - we'll start to get a look at what all could possibly go (and go wrong) in such a script.

Until then,

Cheers!
Brandon

Side Quest

2011-10-19T23:21:00.000-04:00

These last few days I've been working on some other projects that have been needing attention.

My web series, tentatively titled 'Undy1ng' (which, yes, will probably end up needing a new title), has hit it's stride in an impressive way. Our new Director has come out swinging with a wicked, wicked set of notes that've made us all go 'wow'. Needless to say, we're knee-deep in re-writing and making it a stronger, faster, leaner, meaner machine. So far it's coming along quite well, we're about half-done our re-write, so, with a bit of luck, that'll be moving forward in the near-ish future.

In other news, I've been hard at work on nailing the pitch bible for 'Pipeline' -- I've got some great advance notes from Chris and they've been pushing me to dig deeper, answer some questions that I didn't even realize that I'd missed. (Ahh, the joys of an external perspective!)

Other than that, I've been utterly enthralled by what's been going on in the news... just devouring every little tidbit I can about our (as in the World's) financial crisis. I'm not entirely sure just yet how the heck I'm gonna pull this off, but I've gotten a couple really strong ideas for stories. One might be a film, one is (at the very least) a mini-series. I've been jotting some notes down as they come to me, but I'm pretty psyched. Maybe it's something worth exploring once I get Pipeline locked down.

Until then, all I can do is write as much as I can and save it with all the other cool ideas I've gotten over the last while. (Ugh, all the ideas in the world right now, no time to follow up on most of them...)

Anyways, more scriptwriting stuff to come this Friday.

Until then,

Cheers!
Brandon

Freeze Frame

2011-10-17T18:43:00.001-04:00

So, two episodes down, one left to go to get a good idea of the show itself, how it flows, if there are any patterns that emerge, etc.

But what comes afterwards?

I mean, yeah you've got Research. But then what?

Brainstorming, mostly.

I've already broached this subject -- sort of hopped around the list -- when I came up with my title ahead of time.

'The Dragons Of Iowa'

Which, of course, well, leads to the question: What would be the number one thing that has to happen to The Doctor in an episode called 'The Dragons of Iowa'?

Yes, we're going to have the Doctor face down a Dragon.

Pretty straight forward, really. Makes a lot of sense. You get what you pay for and it's labeled right on the box.

Of course, this Dragon will be an Alien, and will have been stuck in a primordial/technological prison for the last half-million years or so.

But yeah, the iconic image I have in my mind is that of the Doctor, sonic screwdriver pointed up at the giant, green, scaly thing looming over him, wings spread -- possibly about to douse him in flame.

Not sure how on-the-nose I'll go with the whole 'dragon' thing, but that image has me stoked for a whole host of other moments I want to bring alive.

You know, I often hear a lot of new writers asking 'what books should I read to get better at writing for TV?' and there really is a fantastic crop out there.

But, in my opinion, one of the best books ever written about writing for a visual medium has got to be 'Understanding Comics' by Scott McCloud.

I'm not sure if it's just because of the way I write, or how I view the world but for me, when I can see that one, still image in my mind; when I can see the entirety of my story summed up in one frozen frame... that's when I know I'm ready.

The book is fantastic because it helps you to learn to think visually.

In Comics it's all about trying to tell a compelling tale with no moving parts. Saying the most you possibly can with that one perfect image and a tiny bit of text.

It's a way of thinking about my work and my stories that I've been trying to perfect over the years. It's not always easy (and frequently frustrating) but when you nail it... it really, really nails it down.

In a Battlestar Galactica spec that I did, one called 'Reign', the image I had in my mind was that of Adama standing there, alone, quietly staring at the ghosts of all the people who had died under his command.

You see, one of the things that always bugged me about the show was that for all the things we learned about Adama over the years, I felt like we never got a chance to get inside his head.

I mean, how does a man who has survived as much as he has, has seen as much death and destruction as he has, manage to cope? Hell, how does he get out of bed in the morning?

That image, of him, alone in CIC, surrounded by the quiet stares of the dead was haunting to me. And it inspired me to write that whole script.

And that's what it's all about, really: Inspiration.

When I think about TV - this wonderful bastard child of Film and Radio - and the tales I want to tell, the very first thing I always try to do is find that image. That one frozen moment that encapsulates the entirely of my excitement for the project.

Furthermore, when I start to write without having found that image, I find that my work is also, well, listless. Lacking direction. Mediocre (or worse).

It's something to refer to, something to keep you on track, something to strive for.

Once you find that, the first part, the hardest part, is done. You're officially into your story. You build around it.

Then it's: What leads to that moment? What happens after that moment?

And, hopefully, you're so freaking excited about finding that one moment that you find another, and then another. Until, hopefully, your script is chock-full of awesome moments.

But I digress.

For now, I'm going to break down one more episode. Then I'm going to try and beat out a story. Then, if that works out, I'll try an outline... or two or three.

One step at a time, tho'. One step at a time.

G'night folks! See you on Wednesday.

Cheers,
Brandon

6x12 - Closing Time Blues

2011-10-14T23:31:00.003-04:00

Okay, so... yeah. This episode hasn't exactly been my favourite and, for a good while now I couldn't put my finger on exactly why that was.

For the last few days I thought that maybe they'd gone and used some other sort of structure for this episode (a 4-Act structure, perhaps) but the closer I looked, the more I realized that that didn't fit.

So I started digging deeper into the episode, charting it out, trying to figure out what was bugging me. And, really, so far as I can tell, there are two things that bother me.

1) The climax of the story is incredibly compressed. The last 3 minutes of the episode have nothing at all to do with the story that's just been told and only serve to set up the season finale. I know, 3 minutes doesn't sound like a whole lot, but considering how quickly (and forced) the climax of the story plays out -- with Craig being captured and turned by the Cybermen and then defeating them all in a matter of seconds... I don't know -- the more I watch this episode (I've seen it like 5 times now) the more I get the feeling like they intentionally pushed past the climax and hung a lantern on how silly the whole thing was (Craig says 'I killed them with love'... ugh).

2) The story feels uneven. Essentially this episode is 'two men and a baby... and some Cybermen' but because the Doctor is on this dark tilt of his (believing that he's a crazy old man who gets his friends killed) it messes with all the light-hearted fun that they've put together off the top.

The very beginning of the episode is right proper dark and spooky... if not a tad silly -- flickering lights belie the creepy-looking Cybermen hiding in fitting rooms and snatching shopworkers away (to be converted, no doubt). This dark bit of an intro ends up leading into some great, comedic scenes when Craig and the Doctor play off of Craig's newfound fatherhood fears.

Yet the episode never seems to decide what it wants to be; a problem that truly comes to the surface as the episode wears on, as they get deeper into their investigation and things start to get dark -- too dark, apparently, because just as the big climax hits, it's like they stomp on the fast forward button. Not only do they gloss over the significance of Craig being turned -- or that that means for the Doctor (yet another failure, another friend lost) -- but they rush through any sense of true danger. One minute it's 'Oh no, Craig's been turned' and then, almost a minute later Cybermen heads are exploding, people are running and explosions are happening. It's like they tried very hard to keep it light-hearted and then realized there wasn't a happy-go-lucky way out of this one so they stomped on the accelerator and hoped no one would notice.

(Or they really wanted that 3 minutes for River at the end and so chopped away whatever used to be there...)

Structurally this is a weird episode as well, pretty much the whole first half of the episode is dominated by A story (setup for the Doctor and the Cybermen) and then the last half of the episode is mostly B story with the Craig realizing he's a great dad after all/defeating the Cybermen, etc.

I had a lot of trouble trying to find the structural nodes of this episode, trying to get a sense of where the natural 'outs' would be. Because this was a slower-paced episode it was significantly harder but I think I managed to figure it out.

Teaser - Out at 3:12 - Shona pulls back the curtain revealing a dirty/scary-looking Cyberman leering back at her. She screams.

Act One - Out at or around 11:46 (possibly earlier) - The Doctor and Craig have just had their first brief encounter with the Cybermen and escaped by the skin of their teeth. Outside the Doctor reveals what they're up against and that they were just on a Cyberman mothership. Craig has a moment of wonder and excitement and exclaims 'I was in outer space!'. - Now, not the strongest of outs, but a natural pause in the story when considering what happens next (they regroup and start to search in earnest for the 'silver rat'). Personally, I think it would've been a quick structural change to have the reveal of the Cyberman coming at them and then cut to an act out (and then they escape) but, hey, that's just my two cents.

Act Two - Out at 21:14 - This is a definitive Act out. The Doctor and Craig are on the trail of a Cybermat and they hear a scream in the distance. The Doctor goes running off after it, gets knocked unconscious by a Cyberman. Out on the Cyberman looking down on The Doctor as he goes out. Heck it even cuts to black.

Act Three - Out at 28:42-ish - This is a 'calm-before-the-storm' Act Out as far as I can tell. They've just managed to kill a Cybermat, the Doctor reprograms the thing into something that can help him fight the Cybermen. He starts to talk to Craig, starts to tell him about the true nature of his fate, that he is to die tomorrow, but turns to see that Craig is asleep. Caring but resigned, he tucks them in with a blanket. As I type this, I'm realizing that the stronger out from this would actually be the next scene which shows the next morning and the Doctor sneaking out on his own to fight the Cybermen by himself. Coming back from the break would show Craig waking up and realizing that the Doctor's gone, sending him into a panic and chasing after him.

Act Four - Out at 34:20 - This would also be a pretty strong Act out if it weren't so darned rushed. The Doctor watches, helplessly, as the captured Craig is forced into the Cyberman conversion unit and the helmet of the Cybermen is welded shut around his head. A fantastic image, a great emotional punch to the gut... but it never gets its chance to really hit home. A minute or two later Craig is free and on the run with the Cybermen exploding from his 'emotional overload'. *sad face*

Act Five - Out at 41:24 or 44:10 - The Doctor's story actually comes to a (unsatisfactory) close at 41:24 as he tells a bunch of dumbfounded kids that he's saved all their lives countless times... then says 'you're welcome'. The episode ends with River underwater after being drugged and forced into an astronaut's suit, moments before coming out of the water and killing the Doctor (as we saw in the first episode).

Anyways, that brings me to a close on 6x12-Closing Time. I'm not sure how much of this will actually help me going forward, but if nothing else, I think I have gotten a touch better and digging into these episodes. This one frustrated me to no end... but, I dunno... I guess I'll have to take a stab at another episode to see if this is an anomaly or something more prevalent with this Series.

Not sure which episode yet, but I am open to suggestions.

Cheers!
Brandon

Okay, so...

2011-10-12T23:29:00.002-04:00

I've been staring at this spreadsheet off and on all day and, I don't know, somehow it's like trying to decipher another language.

Sometimes the easiest way to figure things out is to talk them out. Sooo... yeah, here's what I'm putting together.

[Spoilers]

The First Story I've pulled out of this is:

The Doctor pays a social visit to Craig -- one last visit before he goes to Lake Silencio to die -- starts noticing weird things which leads him to notice that people have started going missing, which leads him to discovering the Cybermen are behind it, which leads to him almost getting Craig and his infant son Alfie (aka Stormageddon aka 'Stormy') killed, leading to the Doctor feeling down on himself. The Doctor feels like he's been a negative force on people, that people die around him. Near the end of his investigation he ends up facing off against the Cybermen who capture Craig and try to convert him but thankfully (due to the love Craig has for Alfie) Craig resists the conversion and his overwhelming love causes all of the Cybermen's heads to explode (followed by their mothership). This inspires the Doctor to go onward, finally ready to face his fate.

The Second Story is:

Craig wants to prove he's capable of watching his son by himself. Secretly he's scared to death, he thinks he's a horrible father. It's made worse when the Doctor arrives and reveals that he can speak baby. Worse, his infant son -- who prefers the name 'Stormageddon: Dark Lord Of All' -- is full of criticisms (which doesn't help Craig's confidence). He gets caught up in the Doctor's web of intrigue and the danger finds its way into his own house where a 'Cybermat' (a large robot silverfish -- like the insect -- with vicious teeth) tries to kill him. The Doctor, despondent over this turn of events, thinks that he's a bad person. While trying to cheer him up, Craig falls asleep and awakens to find the Doctor gone, having left a note that he's gone to defeat the Cybermen on his own. Craig goes after the Doctor and ends up on the Cybermen ship, his plan to rescue the Doctor backfired as he ends up captured and thrown into the Cyberman conversion chamber. He hears his son crying and it spurs him onward to fight it, causing the Cybermen to explode from the ensuing surge of paternal love.

Meanwhile there's a weird little runner where everyone thinks that the Doctor and Craig are Gay lovers (including a bit where the Doctor tells Craig he loves him and almost kisses him).

Structure-wise, I'm still having a bit of a time in teasing out where the Act breaks would be -- and I'm not entirely sure how to reconcile the ending of the episode (which is entirely unrelated to the current story and is there entirely to foreshadow the Season Finale).

But progress is being made. As you can see, both stories end up dove-tailing at the end -- that said, I'm not entirely sure which one is the 'A' story.

Is it the Doctor's (because he's the lead) or is it Craig's (because he has the strongest emotional resolution of the episode)? I gotta admit, I'm kind of torn on this one.

Other than that here's an interesting little technical tidbit that I've discovered:

- The episode has a total of 72 scenes (without getting picky over the intercutting)
- Out of those 72 the Doctor is in 42 -- Craig, however, is in 43

Weird, huh?

Anyways, more of that sort of thing this Friday.

Have a great night!

Cheers,
Brandon

Woot! A Small Measure Of Success!

2011-10-10T23:13:00.001-04:00

Okay, so, good news! I finally finished breaking down Doctor Who 6x12 - Closing Time.

I haven't had time to properly analyze this thing yet, but it's there, it exists.

And now that it's all done, I have to say that I'm feeling really 'meh' about the whole episode.

My preliminary findings here seem to show that this episode is a really odd duck. It's quite weirdly paced and seems to chew up a lot of time but doesn't actually do a whole lot.

Even though it's a very short episode (the total running time is 44:10 but the actual main episode ends at about 41 mins) the story itself still seems incredibly drawn out and thin.

There are some fantastic scenes with Craig and The Doctor, but ... yeah... the whole of it all is just so very forgettable. Worse: the Cybermen plot ends up feeling so tacked on -- even though it's properly set up off the top -- that the episode almost feels like the remnants of two different episodes mashed together.

Add in that weird sort of... tag... at the end that brings River and Madame Kovarian into the mix -- basically setting River up for the final episode -- and, yeah, I almost feel like it was a waste of time to break this one down. It doesn't feel like a regular episode this season.

Anyway, what's done is done. I'll be taking a closer look at it all on Wednesday, maybe there's something useful here that I'm just not seeing.

But yeah, feeling kind of disappointed right now.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Brandon

Some Good Ol' Light-hearted Fun

2011-10-07T22:53:00.001-04:00

So I'm still trying to get this bloody second episode broken down - almost there, but not quite. (It's really hard to get more than 10 mins at any given time to sit down with this thing :S)

Anyways, while I'm off working hard on trying to put a nail in this for Monday, please enjoy a bit of good ol' Doctor Who humour.

Even if you're not a fan of the show, chances are you'll enjoy this -- it stars a certain someone, a Mr. Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr. Bean) playing a pivotal role.

Check it out!

Cheers!
Brandon

RIP Steve Jobs

2011-10-05T22:51:00.004-04:00

Wow...

I don't even know what to say.

I've been trying to write this since I heard the news and nothing seems to fit, nothing seems... right.

Rare is it that a visionary actually manages to make their mark on the world, let alone change it in the way that Steve Jobs did. Through the iPod and iPhone and iPad he fundamentally changed how we interact with technology; moreso, how we interact with one another.

He took our tech and made it simpler, easier -- until we had no choice but to integrate it, to make it into a whole new kind of social construct. He took what used to be the realm of the few and made it 'just work'. Then he went and made it portable -- he made it simpler and portable and designed to bring us together, no matter where you were in the world.

Steve Jobs made technology sexy.

And frankly, he helped make Geeks cool the world over.

(for some of us, that is a debt that can never be repaid).

He was an always-busy, always-complicated man... who still managed to respond -- sometimes with savage honesty -- to personal emails from complete strangers. For all that things that can be said about the man, he held that door open. There was always a chance that you'd get a 1 AM response from Steve Jobs himself in that gruff, take-no-prisoners style. Sometimes a few words to your rambling paragraphs, sometimes more... but always honest and always sticking to his vision of how he wanted his technology to impact those around him.

Unlike so many who get their shot and falter, Steve Jobs knew how he wanted to change the world.

Rest In Peace, Mr. Jobs.

White Wedding

2011-10-03T23:29:00.000-04:00

Well, that was quite a show, eh?

If you didn't happen to catch the season finale of Doctor Who (and care) please be aware that this post talks about that finale and is full of SPOILERS.

Just sayin', fair warning and all.

So in the end our Doctor not only managed to cheat death and fix the entire timestream, he also managed to pick himself up a nice, shiny new bride as well.

Of course we won't mention the fact that his would-be bride was the one who caused the near-destruction of the whole of time... (her own last-ditch attempt to try and save him from his fate).

What I will mention though is how much I've enjoyed this 6th series of the show. Sure, some things don't really hold up if you think about them too much (okay, most things) but one thing that Mr. Moffat does exceedingly well is make sure that the stories under his watch have a solid emotional punch.

I was having a chat with my friend Cameron today about this series of Doctor Who and one thing that came up was the concept of themes -- specifically that the main theme of the series was how the Doctor started to believe his own hype and how, in doing so, he scared a whole lot of people. People started to ask the question: has he become more 'warrior' than 'doctor'? He scared them enough that they kidnapped Amy's daughter and raised her into the perfect 'Doctor-killing' machine.

Doctor or Warrior? Interesting theme for a character who tends to solve problems rather than shoot things (and yet someone always seems to die when he shows up...).

And yet there was also this other re-curring theme, these undercurrents of Paternal love, specifically, of a father saving his son. This is most notable in the episodes 'Curse of the Black Pearl', 'Night Terrors' and 'Closing Time'. The final two episodes even seem to share the same final beats.

Cameron mentioned that, since we never actually see Amy and Rory 'mourn' the loss of their daughter, this theme could've been changed to 'parental' love and expanded upon to great effect in the season finale. I have to agree -- there's a strong sense of love and loss in this series and yet two of the main characters never seem to ever experience this for themselves, especially considering that they've had their first and only child ripped from their hands.

Anyways, I found 'The Wedding Of River Song' to be a fun series finale with some wonderful sparkly bits (and an ingenious little loophole to that whole 'having to die' thing)... yet I can't help but feel like they could've dug deeper. The Doctor's the star of the show, I know, but it also seems like some real potential with Amy and Rory was left behind this time. Every aspect of their relationship was explored except for this one major facet and, in light of that revelation, it seems like a huge miss.

That said, I can't wait to see what they do with the Christmas Special.

Cheers!
Brandon

Wrapping it up

2011-09-30T22:38:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow night's the big finale; when Mr. Moffat finally lays his cards on the table.

If you've been following the season then you know that there's quite a few threads floating around in the air. Most important of which is the supposed 'death' of the Doctor. The death where we saw him die.

The death where they've gone on record as saying 'this is a fixed point in time, this event MUST happen'.

Yeah, that's quite a corner to paint yourself into.

Quite a thing to try and come back from.

(Spoilerrific catch-up video below for Series 6)

But if we know anything about the Doctor (and the laws of running a successful TV series) then we know that he'll find a way to sneak his way out of that one.

All-in-all I've been quite a fan of this season, there haven't been a ton of episodes that've left me panting in my seat... but it's been a solid ride with some great reveals.

And this finale looks to be a real doozy -- I can't wait to see how it ends!

In other news, unfortunately, I haven't yet finished my breakdown for 6x12, hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get that all sorted.

In other, other news that Web Series I've been working on has a Director attached, just looking to track down a Producer. We're currently on our 2nd round of rewrites and, man, are the scripts really starting to shine. Seriously, if we can pull this off, it's gonna be awesome.

And, finally, it looks like I'll be getting to sit down with Mr. Sheasgreen again soon (hopefully this coming week) to tackle my pitch bible for Pipeline.

Progress is slow these days, especially with so much in the works and, well, a baby... but it's still progress, things are still happening.

I'll take it.

Anyways, more to come soon!

Cheers,
Brandon

Doctor Who 6x09 Breakdown

2011-09-28T23:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, so the 6x12 episode's not quite ready yet but thankfully 6x09 has completed its run.

Here's what I've managed to put together with the help of my little spreadsheet template -- note: one show is only going to give you so much info, once you've got 3 done you tend to be able to make better judgement calls but this is a decent jumping off point.

Total Running Time: 41:37

'A' Plot Run Time: 29:11 <-- this is a bit high as when I wasn't sure (usually some odd scenes with tertiary characters) I tended to lump them in with the A plot.

'B' Plot Run Time: 9:45 <-- this is much easier to track as the B plot was pretty solidly divided.

'Runner' Run time: 0:59 <-- a weird little micro-plot about the father owing rent money that only existed to tie the landlord into the story... was pretty odd.

Five Acts??

As the episode played out I tried to pick out where the Act Breaks would be if it had natural Act Outs. What surprised me was that often there were these fantastic build-ups, with tension and the whole nine yards, very noticeable points in the story where in a regular American program you'd cut out and go to commercial. This show chose not to do that, but they're still there and seem to make sense.

I found a total of 5 potential Act Outs (Spoilers from here on down)

Teaser is self explanatory.

Act Out Number One was at 12:55 where the Doctor confronts George and says that he's 'here to talk about the monsters'. It's significant because it's the first real moment the Doctor being 'the Doctor' - he steps from the shadows and recognizes the boy and his call for help; maybe the boy's right, maybe something IS up after all. It's a great moment that bumps up the intrigue aaaand, if this were a North American production, commercial!

Act Out Number Two, for me, came at 19:14, a natural extension of Act the end of Act One - the Doctor, now finally getting a proper reading off the cupboard (where the family has hidden all the things that George fears) is surprised to find out that the readings are actually off the scale. Freaked out by this revelation, and further agitated as Alex (George's father) tries to open said cupboard, the Doctor turns to Alex and stops him. Why? Because "George's monsters are real". WHAAA?!
Aaaand commercial!

Act Out Number Three seemed to pop up at 28:35 where, after a pretty brilliant scene where the Doctor realizes/reveals that Alex's wife (Claire) was never pregnant for George -- and Alex responds, as if remembering something long forgotten, 'of course not, Claire can't have kids!' it's revealed that George is some sort of alien child. Who then freaks out 'causing the Doctor and Alex to be sucked into said evil cupboard of fear as the little boy looks on in horror. The cupboard even gives a satisfying little door slam after our heroes disappear inside. Yeah, we'll be right back... time to sell some soap.

Act Out Number Four comes just after the climax of the episode at 38:40, after Alex realizes that all of his son's fear came from George's worrying that his parents were going to abandon him. Something something about George being a special kind of alien, but essentially ends with Alex hugging his son and re-affirming that he'll love George no matter what. They both cry, George calls out 'DAD!' and the closet bursts open in a brilliant show of white light. One last further shot of the two embracing happily and we have one last commercial out before coming back for the epilogue.

The end of 'Act Five' at 41:37 shows the Doctor and his companions back on the TARDIS and talking about what their next fantastic adventure will be -- though a wicked little children's rhyme plays in the background 'tick tock goes the clock, even for the Doctor'. A nice little creepy ending and some foreshadowing for what's to come.

(end spoilers)

Getting into a bit more technical, number-y stuff, here's what I found:

Scene break down:

Total 'scenes': 68 <-- also seems high but this was mostly due to some very fast-paced, creative editing.

Total 'A' Plot scenes: 50 <-- This is high because, when in doubt (and with the B plot being SO obvious) I lumped the scene in with the A plot. There are a number of weird little side scenes (like the Landlord in his apartment being sucked into the floor) that didn't really seem to fit anywhere.
Total 'B' Plot scenes: 13
Total 'Runner' Plot scenes: 5

Scenes featuring the Doctor: 32 -- of which 30 are in the 'A' story

The next most-used character, surprisingly, turned out to be George's Dad, Alex who appeared in a combined total of 26 scenes.

Next up was Alex's son, George with 24 scenes total.

Amy and Rory, the Doctor's companions, ended up in a total of 22 scenes each (mostly because they spent all of their time together).

Scene Breakdown by 'Act'

Teaser: 4 Scenes
Act One: 21 Scenes <-- Some very quick scenes that didn't fit together and weren't intercut... weird. I might give this another look later.
Act Two: 11 Scenes
Act Three: 9 Scenes
Act Four: 15 Scenes
Act Five: 8 Scenes

Anyways, if there's interest, let me know and I'll post the completed spreadsheet up here for you take a look at.

So far, not bad. Not exactly enough to draw final conclusions on -- especially if this 21 scenes in Act 1 is a fluke, a mistake or a common thing (even if it's a mistake at 21, it'll still be a pretty high scene count).

But, hey, it's a start.

Cheers!
Brandon

Breaking it down

2011-09-26T18:39:00.001-04:00

So, I'm about halfway done breaking down 6x09 Night Terrors. It's been a bit of work getting everything set up but, thankfully, having that transcript on hand has made life a tad bit easier.

Even thought I'm only halfway done, it's pretty easy to see that it's a very fast-paced episode. I haven't noticed yet if this is a pattern (which will come once I've broken a couple more episodes) but so far, at the halfway mark I'm at about 37 'scenes'.

Now, that number is artificially inflated due to editing, but considering that the total running time for the episode is 42 minutes that's still a whole whack of scenes. They manage to cheat this by having a lot of cutting back and forth while staying within only a few sets. So far, the longest scene in the whole episode clocks in at 1:52 with the shortest being 4 seconds (though this scene inter-cuts with another, ends up acting like more of an intro to the scene proper).

That's only a bit of a glimpse into what's been gleaned so far and there's more to come, for sure. With any luck I'll be able to finish this tonight and tackle episode 6x12 tomorrow (putting both breakdowns up for this Wednesday).

Other than that, I finally managed to get in a shipment of printed books! Woo-Freakin' hoo... so those are going back into the mail ASAP and out to those fantastic people who climbed on board when 404 was still in Web-only form.

Many apologies for how long the whole process has taken but you should be getting your couriered copies soon! (yay!)

Alright, back to these spread sheets!

More to come ;)

Cheers,
Brandon

Okay, so, new plan

2011-09-23T18:07:00.001-04:00

My life's been too hectic these last couple of days to sit down and start breaking down 'Night Terrors' properly (hopefully I'll get to that this weekend) but since today's a write-off, I'm going to share with you a little tool that my wife and I designed to help me break down episodes.

At first glance it's a simple little spreadsheet, but I've found it quite useful in helping me figure out all sorts of information about a show -- things that can help to ensure that your script feels like a 'real' episode.

You can find the template over there on the sidebar under the 'Stuff I Made - Free Stuff' heading. It's an XLS doc so you're probably going to have to use it with MS Excel (I believe 2003 or later) and it's formatted for a 5-Act series but all of that stuff should be pretty easy to tweak as per necessary.

I originally used this when I was breaking down several episodes for my Chuck spec (also over there on the side) and it's definitely one of my stronger scripts because of it.

I offer this tool to you for free in goodwill. And while I know there's no way to enforce this, please do me the kindness of not selling it or claiming as your own.

Feel free to modify it as per necessary to your uses but if you share that modified version, please keep the original 'created by' information intact.

Thank you very much (and I hope you find as much use out of this as I have)!

Cheers,
Brandon

P.S: Here's an idea of what the spreadsheet looks like when it's filled in:

Doctor, Doctor!

2011-09-21T16:04:00.003-04:00

Sometimes the hardest thing about writing a spec for a TV show is actually finding a relevant script. In the case of trying to write a Doctor Who spec that fact is further aggravated because, well, there aren't any available for the current series.

And yet, thanks to the wonders of the internet, one has the ability to stumble upon people like 'jpgr'. See, jpgr is a big Doctor Who fan. No, really. Huge. She's gone and made TRANSCRIPTS for each and every episode of Series 6 (so far she's up to 6x10 - The Girl Who Waited).

Wow.

Now, there are certain things you're not going to get out of a transcript. You're not going to get their writing style, probably not much of their flow (since the Transcript is for the final produced show) but it's a fantastic thing to have on hand and it can make your life incredibly easier as you work to break the show down to its component parts. It's also great for dialogue analysis, picking up trends in how characters speak, what words or phrases they tend to use often.

Anyways, I happened to stumble upon this today and I thought it was a brilliant thing (making transcripts can be brutally mind-numbing at the best of times) and it saves me from having to do the work myself.

So, well, thank you jpgr!

This Friday I'm going to start to break down the episode 'Night Terrors' which is somewhat thematically similar to the episode I'm putting together.

Until then, take a gander at jpgr's site and revel in her hard work.

(and jpgr, if you happen upon this post, get in touch - I'd like to thank you properly for your hard work!)

Cheers,
Brandon

Doctor Dark?

2011-09-19T22:39:00.000-04:00

Over in the UK there's been a lot of complaints from distraught parents that Doctor Who isn't a kid's TV program anymore. It's too scary now.

I have to admit, when my friend Cameron first got me into the show -- through some audio books like War of the Daleks and some comic strips of the Seventh Doctor tearing around time and space -- I had no real idea that this was, in fact, a show intended for kids. It seemed like a regular, adult Drama to me.

I mean, sure the plots got a tad silly sometimes but by and large there was nothing that pushed me into a 'this is for kids' mindset. In fact, to be honest, the writing on the show has often been quite compelling. Adult-level compelling.

Honestly, I wish I'd have discovered this show when I was younger. (I mean, I knew it existed but back then I was more interested in Cartoons).

Instead, I found myself settling in with the Doctor during his 9th iteration, when Christopher Eccleston re-launched the program as a traumatized Time-War Veteran.

Sure, the first episode was a tad hokey -- about plastic coming to life through an army of mannequins and trash bins -- but the character drew me in. He was manic, eccentric, brilliant; unlike any other character I'd ever seen on TV.

Yet there's no doubt that over time this show has gotten darker. As each Doctor made his way to the forefront, as more and more adventures have scarred him, the fight against the baddies has slowly turned its way inward. And as he has grown darker, so too has his rogue's gallery: The Weeping Angels, The Silence, The Gangers, The Headless Monks...

Creatures that get you from behind, when you're not looking. Creatures that make you forget you ever saw them, that can control your mind and make your every action their own. It's creepy territory, for sure, moreso when people start talking about how this is supposed to be a kid's show.

Mr. Moffat has defended this trend, saying things like:

"Children like to be scared – like on a ghost train or a rollercoaster" and "They have always told each other ghost stories in the dark."

And by and large I agree with him.

Except for one thing:

I would readily say that this show is no longer for 'kids'. It's now a show for 'the kids who grew up watching the Doctor', kids who are now adults and wanting their Doctor to tackle more adult themes; To explore darker, more ominous questions like 'Is this hero really a hero? or is he a crazy old man who hurts the ones he loves?'.

Yes, these aren't new questions, and they're not the first time they've been asked over the 50-ish years of Doctor Who's existance but questions like that were often found in novellizations and radio dramas, things that, by their nature catered to more adult fans.

Seeing them here, now on the main stage (as it were), with the largest audience that the Doctor's ever had -- often an audience of fans who want their children to share in it as well -- it gets harder and harder to justify that this is a 'kids show' any longer.

It's growing, changing, becoming something more... but as it struggles to straddle both worlds the seams are starting to show. Like the Doctor himself, this show has a decision to make. A path to choose.

And I'm intrigued to see how it'll all pan out.

Cheers,
Brandon

Storytime

2011-09-16T23:25:00.000-04:00

Warning: This post will have randomly placed, unmarked spoilers for Series 6 of Doctor Who in it. If you haven't seen Series 6 and you want to go into it unspoiled, then you'll probably want to skip this post for now.

For everyone else, random spoiler encounters from here on out.

So, what do we know about this incarnation of The Doctor?

The last Doctor, the Tenth Doctor, he was light-hearted sort of chap with a real wide-eyed amazement about the world... but there was also this dark side to him; there was an edge. It took a lot to piss him off, but if you'd managed that feat, oh did he ever make you pay for it.

But this Doctor... he's... well, he's smug. He's a ton of other things as well -- he's a live-wire, he's quick-witted, he's weird... but also: smug. That said, he's also a strangely positive sort of person; always trying to keep attitudes up even when things look their bleakest. He's self-aware but completely unafraid to get a tad grandiose in just 'who' he is (and how amazing he is).

Smug.

It's an interesting thing to keep in mind as I start to gather the threads of the story I'll be telling.

Of course, this Doctor would be nothing without his Companions, the married couple Amy and Rory.

Amy's a brave woman, bold, a bit reckless. She's also (thanks to the help of some alien tech) a new mother. Her baby was taken from her by an alien religious cult called 'The Silence' who plan to raise the baby into an assassin capable of killing the Doctor once and for all. Needless to say, she is not happy about this development. She knows that her daughter grows up well, as it's eventually revealed that River Song is Amy's daughter (all grown up), but she still longs for her baby back, to not miss all those wonderful years of being with her child. The Doctor has promised to find her baby and return it but even he suspects it's a promise that he won't be able to keep.

Rory started off as a timid sort of guy, but he loves his wife dearly and has performed many brave and heroic acts to try and help or save her. He used to be jealous of the relationship Amy shared with the Doctor, but now he's calmed down a tad and has come out of his shell more. He also recently punched out Hitler.

Caught up?

So where are we so far, storywise?

Well, right now we've got:

A Title: The Dragons of Iowa
A Location: Iowa, USA
A Time Period: The Great Depression - The Dustbowl Era - 1936
A Big Bad: Urmungstandstra - The imprisoned 'Devil God' of the Silurian Race.
A Tone: Horror

Okay. Good. It's a start.

So, Plot. What happens? This's the part that, well, is likely to change significantly over time - especially prior to a first draft.

For me, when I plot, I like to plot already thinking in TV structure. What's my Teaser look like? What am I building towards? What's the big Act Out look like?

So let's start with a theoretical Teaser. What would that look like?

Well, the first decision is: Are we starting with The Doctor and company, or are we starting with someone else?

Okay, no, that's not really the first decision. Where does it fall in the span of Series 6? What's our story about?

The story that, right now, I feel that I want to tell... it's about children. About quite possibly the biggest fear any parent has: losing their child.

In Series 6, this is highly relevant because it's already happened to Amy. And I want this story to start not long after the baby's been taken, so I'd probably slot this in between episode 8 ("Let's Kill Hitler") and episode 9 ("Night Terrors"). Interestingly enough, 'Night Terrors' deals with fear and children as well, but from the other end of the spectrum (a child afraid that he's going to lose his parents).

So, Teaser:

Let's start it on the TARDIS.

Backstory to this episode:
"Let's Killer Hitler" is only a few week's back, the Doctor, Amy and Rory have just left their adult, formerly brainwashed daughter -- River Song -- in the hospital (and to her fate) after she killed the Doctor and then brought him back.

It turns out that River turned was able to regenerate like the Doctor but ended up sacrificing this ability (gave it to the Doctor) in order to undo his death.

Plotting it out:
In light of these events, Amy hasn't been the same since. She's more determined than ever to get her daughter back and knowing that she's far out of reach has left Amy depressed.

Rory and the Doctor try to cheer her up, want to distract her, show her some sun and sand, some of the best beaches in the galaxy. The Doctor takes off in a blur, determined to make her feel better.

The TARDIS lands, everyone exits, dressed for the beach but step out into a desolate farmer's field, withered plants covered in blowing dust. In the distance, a run-down old shack. The ground beneath them rumbles, shakes... something's wrong.

The Doctor orders them back onto the TARDIS, closing the door as the ground gives way. Inside, everyone is bounced around as the TARDIS crashes to the ground.

Everyone's fine. The Doctor still dressed for the beach (meaning dressed as per usual but with a Sun visor?... maybe a stripe of Zinc on his nose...?) steps out of the TARDIS into a pool of... goo. He pulls his foot back to see that it's covered in yolk. He looks around to see a massive underground cavern... full of huge eggs (think triple the size of an Ostrich egg).

Off of this, we go to Titles.

Now... okay, not the best start but, let's be objective: what works here? Not everything -- there's not much here about the time period or how it will play into things, there's no 'other' people for them to interact with yet. But we may not need them yet -- who's story is this?

So far it's Amy's story (which should be okay, seeing as she's one of the main characters, thus not breaking the Second Rule).

But there's more setup needed here, more groundwork to lay before we can start this tale off proper.

Back to the drawing board... for now.

Have a great weekend, folks! See you Monday.

Cheers,
Brandon

Dragons and Such

2011-09-14T22:41:00.001-04:00

One of the cool things about the potential of writing a Doctor Who spec is that you have the opportunity to make your own big bad or, if you so choose, dust off a classic baddie.

In this case, I've decided to do a bit of both.

See, one of my favourite Doctor Who 'villains' is a race called the Silurians. One of the coolest traits of these 'monsters' is that they're actually the original inhabitants of the Earth; they were here first.

They evolved from Reptiles millions of years ago and, despite the time period, had a very technologically advanced society. They were master geneticists and were known for bringing species back from extinction (as well as creating several biological weapons). In fact, if they hadn't put their entire race into hibernation -- to avoid what they believed would be a cataclysmic disaster -- Humanity as we know it would probably never have come to pass.

Luckily for us (but unfortunately for them) their hibernation tech malfunctioned, keeping them in stasis long after the rise of Humanity.

Now they're waking up and realizing that their planet has been usurped by... mammals?

It's a fantastic backstory and in Series 5 Doctor Who used the Silurians as a way to show that, in many cases, Humanity is the real monster (The Hungry Earth/In Cold Blood).

However, some of my favourite Doctor Who episodes are the Horror episodes. Episodes like 'Blink'. Or high-tension episodes like 'Midnight'.

And, you know, the title of the episode is 'The Dragons of Iowa'.

So I was reading up on the backstory of the Silurians and came across a being called "Urmungstandra" -- essentially, the 'Devil God' of the Silurian people.

Intrigued by the idea, I started digging, trying to find out more about this being... and what I learned is that there's not a whole lot of information on it other than the fact that it's considered a part of Silurian mythology.

So then I started thinking about this evolved race, this technologically advanced, brilliant race that still had this irrational fear of a 'Devil God'. So I started to imagine what this Devil God would look like, something that reminded them of their unevolved, animalistic roots. Something fearsome. Something evil. Something hungry.

Not a 'God' but something worshipped like a God. Something that actually exists; something captured, imprisoned, hidden away, forgotten.

And, slowly, I started to put together the idea for a story.

But we'll dive into that a bit more on this coming Friday. ;)

Cheers!
Brandon

Call The Doctor!

2011-09-12T22:40:00.000-04:00

Okay, so, yeah, that was a bit of a heart attack.

I opened the PDF for 4x15 Planet of the Dead and it said that it was 88 pages long.

Luckily, two little words saved me from a full-blown coronary: Pink Revisions.

In actuality, the script is 73 pages plus a bunch of tiny add-in pages, so we're looking at around 76 or so pages for the British version of the TV series, with the final, aired, episode clocking in at around 59 mins.

The BBC America version of the show generally clocks in at about 44 - 46 minutes so if I aim for about 60-65 pages, I think I should be fine as far as script-length goes.

One interesting thing that's quickly noticeable in the script is just how much white space is dedicated to things like camera angles, special effects and CUT TO: Transitions. Especially the CUT TOs. I bet if I went in there and pulled out all the CUT TOs I could probably shave a good 2-3 pages off of this script.

Anyways, I digress...

Another interesting thing, and potentially my biggest roadblock, is the fact that Doctor Who doesn't have any noticeable division of Acts. I'm sure they're in there, silently tittering while hiding beneath the covers, but it'll take some work to tease it out.

One of the most baffling things that I've noticed, specifically about the BBC America series, is that what often seems to happen is that the commercial breaks don't line up with the Act Outs. Or, what could easily be Act Outs. Why this is, specifically, I'm not sure yet -- could it be because BBC America shoehorned five Act Breaks into an episode written for four Acts?

Or is it that maybe the episode itself is following a whole other formula? At this point, I'm not quite sure... yet.

See, one of the things I've been wondering as I read Planet Of The Dead (not a Moffat episode, but, being unable to get a script for a Moffat episode, this had to do) was how this thing was put together. Specifically, if it following any sort of Act structure, what structure would it be? (3,4 or 5 acts).

Story-wise, it seems to be pretty easy to sort out, we have the A Plot: Doctor and rag-tag group of bus passengers travel through a wormhole in downtown London and end up in a desert on another planet and have to find their way home before a 'swarm' can get to them and eat them.

There appears to be a sort of small B Plot in that there is another group of aliens called the Tritovore that crash-landed on the planet. At first they think that the Doctor is responsible for their crash but the Doctor can speak their language and so befriends them (until they die horribly while giving the Doctor an essential piece of the puzzle to get everyone home).

And then instead of a C story there's a weird sort of Runner going on back in London with UNIT, Captain Magambo and Malcolm (the brilliant mind that will help the doctor escape).

All of these stories naturally dovetail into one another with the B folding into the A and then, finally, the Runner catching up to everything as they eventually get the Doctor and his new friends home.

But Act-wise? That's a whole other kettle of fish.

The easy bit is the Teaser, in the script it was 4 pages comprised of 8 very fast-paced scenes.

But once we get into the action that's where things get hinky.

See there's a spot on Page 10A (page 15 in the PDF) where the character CARMEN reveals, through her creepy low-level psychic abilities that "The Dead. We are surrounded by the dead." It's a great, ominous bit of foreshadowing -- but it's too early on in the story, only 6 pages after the intro, can't have an Act Out there. Or can we?

The very next scene (Page 16 in the PDF) after that beat jumps the time forward a certain amount of time, showing three suns blazing overhead (and not immediately killing everyone) and the crew hard at work trying to get the bus moving out in the desert.

So... it certainly feels like we've had an Act Out. Like we've stepped away from the story for a moment and come back to it. Weird.

The next 'moment' that feels like an Act Out comes on Page 20 (Page 26 in the PDF). The Doctor's friends have all started to lose hope, complaining that it's hot and none of their ideas have worked out. They start to fight amongst one another so the Doctor talks to them all, changes the subject by asking them where they were going, what they were doing... and then, once the mood shifts, he tells them not to give up on that hope.

THE DOCTOR
Just think of them. Cos that planet
out there, all three suns and
wormholes and alien sand, that
planet is nothing. D'you hear me?
Nothing, compared to all those
things waiting for you. Food and
home and people, hold on to that.
Cos we're gonna get there. I
promise. I'm gonna get you home.

BAM. No, seriously, if that's not an Act Out... I mean, come on. They even follow that up by jumping out to the C plot, dealing with the arrival of UNIT back in London.

After that, on Page 42 (Page 50 in the script) we end up with another possible Act Out moment. Following the Doctor and his friend's meetup with and subsequent capture by the Tritovore race, the Doctor is able to discern not only their location (they're on the other side of the Universe) but that all the sand on the planet got there in just over a year. The sand is the remnants of the planet's population, sucked dry of all their moisture. The stakes are further raised in that we learn that the wormhole is growing in size, 4 miles straight up now. They've stopped all airplane traffic back in London just to be safe.

And then, after all of this, the alien probe finally reaches the storm and sends back images described as such:

EXT. PLANET, FX SHOT - DAY
FX SHOT (x2, LONG DURATION!): CU on the dot-of-light PROBE, against blue sky - then it swoops down - INTO A SWARM! A blizzard of STINGRAY-LIKE CREATURES in flight. They're
grey but with a metallic exo-skeleton glinting in the sun.

BOLTS OF LIGHTNING shoot through the swarm, like it's generating electricity.
FX SHOT: CU on a STINGRAY. Snapping red O-shaped mouth.

CUT TO:

INT. TRITOVORE SHIP, CONTROL ROOM - DAY
THE DOCTOR, CHRISTINA, TRITOVORES staring.
FX SHOT: 54.2 FX projected in the air.

CHRISTINA
It's a swarm. Millions of them...

THE DOCTOR
Billions.

Okay. Again... that reads to me like another perfect Act Out moment. Maybe I'm just noticing these 'cause I'm looking for them, but in the context of the story so far, they seem legit to me.. has anyone else noticed this?

After this we jump out to an FX shot of the metallic swarm of stingrays sweeping across the surface of the planet and it jumps back into the story proper. Could be a great moment to return from a commercial break...? Just sayin'...

So following this reveal we learn that these creatures eat metal and extrude it into a type of exoskeleton and fly around the planet in mass numbers, faster and faster until they rip a hole in space, which the creatures use to go to the next planet and drain it dry of its resources. (wow)

This last one... I'm really on the fence about -- primarily because, well, the Act Out would fall on a C story -- but at a moment that directly effects the A plot... so I don't know.

Take a look and tell me what you think: By page 60/61 (Pages 71/72 in the PDF) the Doctor and his friend has survived an encounter with the alien stingrays (which killed the two Tritovores), escaped with some MacGuffin which will allow the bus to somehow escape back through the wormhole. We learn that the wormhole is still getting bigger but now Malcolm has figured out a way to close it. The Doctor races back to the bus and the waiting passengers, gets it all geared up and ready to go. Meanwhile, in London, Captain Magambo orders Malcolm to close the wormhole immediately. Malcolm objects, saying that it would trap the Doctor and everyone on the other side. The captain pulls a gun and puts it to Malcolm's head, saying she knows how to shut down the wormhole herself. Malcolm stands his ground:

Magambo pulls her gun out. Aims it right at Malcolm.

CAPTAIN MAGAMBO
Right now, soldier.

MALCOLM
(terrified)
No, cos... You need me. You don't
even know which button.

CAPTAIN MAGAMBO
Transmit, F8.

Malcolm picks up his keyboard, holds it behind his back.

MALCOLM
Well, then. To get to that button.
You'll have to shoot me.

CLOSE on her; hating this, but her finger on the trigger...

My main problem is that it breaks up the momentum that had been building -- the Doctor, right after that scene, uses the alien technology to fly the bus out of the sand dunes and, with the stingrays hot on their tale, fly it back through the wormhole.

The other problem is that, other than this moment, I can't really find any other moments where things pause in any way shape or form... other than that moment, after the 'Act Out' on page 42 it seems like a pretty solid run toward the finish line.

So... I don't know, maybe I'm only seeing what I want to see here... but those other moments, they're pretty compelling. Could this script be harboring a silent Teaser/5 Act structure?

More and more I feel myself wanting to say 'yes' but... I don't know.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Brandon

And What Of Iowa?

2011-09-09T23:17:00.002-04:00

Ahh Wikipedia, the writer's best first step forward. Even if it's not entirely accurate, it is a great (free) place to start digging around.

So, at Wikipedia I search for "Iowa History" which... takes me to the "History Of Iowa". Man, you gotta love it when it's that straight forward. Alright then, so we're looking for 'Americana', or something weird or interesting or that would somehow carry a strong emotional resonance. All four would be even better.

History caps on, people -- it's Research Time!

- Iowa was part of the Louisiana Purchase (<-- great read) in 1803, US purchased the land from the French.

- The US didn't have uncontested control of Iowa until after the war of 1812 and it didn't become a state until 1846.

- Railroads in the 1850s and 60s changed the face of Iowa from subsistence farming to commodity farming

- Iowa "contributed a disproportionate amount of young men to fight in the American Civil War".

- After the Civil War, Iowa became an agricultural powerhouse and supplied food to the rest of the nation.

- With Industrialization of agriculture this only grew over time, until the small family farm was threatened by larger farms

- Then came the Great Depression (1929-1940-ish), which hit Iowa exceedingly hard as prices of meat and food bottomed out.

- Recovered in the early 1940's after the passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (passed in 1933 but took a while to get full effect).

Now, out of this list, the thing that really kind of grabs me is the idea of the Great Depression; it's a time of great strife, a classic and deeply emotional American tale.

When I think of the Great Depression, the thing that pops into my mind -- one of the most iconic times -- is the Dustbowl; a time of endless heat, drought and rolling dust storms through the breadbasket of America.

Unfortunately, as I dig deeper into my research, Iowa didn't really get caught up in the Dustbowl. They'd had some years of drought, but nowhere near as bad as what was going on in the Southwest.

That said, they did have one really bad year -- 1936 -- where essentially all the dust from the Dustbowl came home to roost on what little they'd managed to grow.

From the article:
"Dust drifted two or three feet high, around fences and buildings. Dust sifted into houses, under doors and through cracks around windows. It filled the air, darkening the day."

Well, that's certainly an event of note. But how would The Doctor get involved? Or maybe this is ultimately a red herring in my investigation, maybe this isn't the right setting at all. Still, it's an interesting tidbit. Let's file that one away.

Okay, so... what else happened to those living in Iowa? Well, with food prices bottomed out, many farmers couldn't afford to pay the debts they incurred while producing food for the war -- that means no work, little or no crops, lots of hunger. Farms were being foreclosed on, Banks were shuttering their doors and even those with money saved were finding themselves bankrupt, sometimes overnight.

Yes, there's definitely something here... I'm not sure what yet, but something about this setting is speaking to me. I'm going to think on this a bit more, see what comes to mind.

Meanwhile, keep on reading those Doctor Who scripts! Now, I was originally going to tackle "Waters of Mars" on Monday, but since it's a 'special' episode, it's not really fair. Instead, I'll take a look at "Planet Of The Dead", the last stand-alone episode of Doctor Who before David Tennant began his swan song and passed the torch over to Matt Smith.

So, if you choose to read only one script this weekend, check out that one.

Anyways, more to come!

Cheers,
Brandon

Inspiration!

2011-09-07T17:27:00.003-04:00

So, here's a little peek into how my mind works:

I was looking at the scripts for Press Gang -- one of the series that Mr. Steven Moffat had been showrunner on before he'd gotten onto Doctor Who -- and I noticed that there was a script entitled: "At Last A Dragon".

So then I got thinking: Hrmmm... Dragons. In Doctor Who? Is that crazy? Is that just too far out there?

Considering that this's a series that's been all over the universe (and more)... well, it's worth a gander.

So then I thought 'Here Be Dragons'... and then I thought that it'd be a pretty neat title for an episode.

And then I dismissed it as too blah.

But then I remembered that Series 6, at least the first couple episodes, had a strong Americana streak in it -- of course, they followed that up by sailing the high seas on a pirate ship and then by visiting a 'junk planet' in a bubble universe... but that wasn't on my mind at the time.

Anyways, I started thinking 'Americana', started thinking 'history' and started thinking 'cool place names'... which evolved into 'cool state names'.

Arkansas...?

Cool, sure, but I wanted something that had a bit more mystery to it. Something that sounded... I dunno... otherworldly?

Wyoming?

I ended up -- and this is a temporary title, may or may not change... hell, the whole thing might change if it turns out there's really not a good story here... but for now I came up with a title that I think is rather interesting:

Doctor Who: The Dragons of Iowa.

I really like the name Iowa. It sounds... otherworldly, it sounds mysterious -- like it could be a whole other planet or something. Eye-Oh-Wah.

Huh.

Personally, I don't know much about Iowa (yet), so there's also a bit of mystery there as well. For me, when I think of Iowa, I think 'Heartland of America' kind of thing. Corn. Lots of corn. Rolling fields of corn.

Not dragons.

Which, really, could be kind of cool.

Of course, then we have to think about time periods. We have a guy who can travel to any time, any place in the whole of the universe. Why Iowa? What goes on in Iowa?

Well, as far as I can tell, not a whole lot that's seriously historically significant. (My apologies to Iowa-ians if I've missed something amazing).

But hey, that's how research works: You hit upon something that makes you go 'huh... I wonder' and then you start digging.

So, I've got to do some digging into the history of Iowa.

And I've also got to start pulling apart Doctor Who scripts.

A bit more homework for you, if you're interested: Read some Doctor Who scripts. They're not by Mr. Moffat, but should still put you into the right mindset nonetheless.

This Friday we can start to start to dig in a bit further. Brainstorm a tad, perhaps.

Cheers for now!
Brandon