Eibon Films - News

I just bought a couple of sets of these 100 Record cards.

When I revise for things I tend to try and condense everything into tiny bite-sized chunks of information and cram as many notes as I can onto these cards; as I believe the act of writing something down helps me remember things. Repetition is key. Not losing them is also key. Getting them cheap is recommended. To me, these ones that already come with a ring binder are a brilliant and simple yet effective idea!

When I am writing in an ‘old school’ fashion, needing to hide away from my machine and the evil lure of the unfiltered Web, I often break my scenes or plot points down on Index Cards. then, in trying to follow Syd Field, or Blake Snyder, I attach them to my corkboard in order to visualise all of the elements of my story and then see if I need to reorder them in order to shake things up and keep the structure fresh.

Obviously using software tools like Final Draft, Celtx or Scrivener I can do this virtually without a need to kill a tree or needing to be wary of battery power or being near a plug socket. But sometimes that tactile element is incredibly important - to move something and be able to still see the entire structure in one go, and not have to keep scrolling. Currently no software package can do that for you. It’s old school brainstorming or mind mapping.

With these great cards you can carry them around, make oodles of notes and do some healthy planning and then later if you need to take the binder away and start arranging them on your carpet floor or stick them to your corkboard. Pin them to the 4 corners of your mind and then write!

That reminds me. I have a feature to get back to work on! Soon my board will be full of ideas and not a distracting picture. ;0)

Screenwriter Don Roos has an interesting technique for ensuring that he gets the job done - by using a Kitchen Egg Timer and a series of handy tips behind the method to ensure that he sticks to the time allotted. But why do we have to go to these lengths?

Many writing tools offer you the ability to write - distraction free, ie in full screen mode; but they can’t make you stick to it. (more…)

Flasher than flash fiction - I never thought it was possible to write a story in the limited number of characters that one Twitter post allows you; that is until I finally decided to try Twitter and then stumbled across Sean Hill’s Twitter Profile Very Short Stories aka http://www.very-short-story.com/. (more…)

Dan O’Bannon - ALIEN scribe is dead.  The World should definitely mourn the loss of one artist.

Until I started teaching myself about screenwriting, he was just a name on a poster. I mean I didn’t even really realise that people wrote screenplays; before I was first told that in order to make a film I needed a screenplay. I mean you just went to the cinema and the films just magically happen. Right? They all just show up on set and make it up as they go along. Right? At least that is what Hollywood often wants us to believe, with the cult of the Director and the purported talent of certain actors. God forbid, the stories are crafted by artisans…

I knew he had something to do with ALIEN and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, DARK STAR and LIFEFORCE but I had no clue as to what contribution he made, or how much of a difference he made; how significant was he?

And then one day I read the screenplay to ALIEN.  For me it was a life changing experience. I can’t really describe it, but the economic, unflowery and effective prose really spoke to me. Again, I wasn’t sure who (of all of the people involved in that screenplay) really was responsible, but I took notice and I read a few more screenplays that he had a hand in. Each one, was its own piece of work, but each had a unique power and economy that really spoke to me, even if the end film didn’t really have the same effect. Inspired by that, by the power of his prose, I tore the hell out of two feature screenplays trying to cut each one down to its purest and most economic form. But they were pale imitations at best, when compared to this man’s work. It is something I find myself continually revisiting and constantly chasing - an elusive muse.

It will be a crime if others do not mourn his passing. I know I have lost an unofficial mentor. I will still revisit his scripts and chase a fraction of their power.

DEXTER SERIES 4 - the plot twist in the finale - is an epic FAIL! It does’t work and is so flawed with logic holes. It just feels shoehorned onto the end and totally ruins the otherwise perfect denouement. I won’t debate it here, in case people haven’t yet seen it. But right now I am livid! Grrrr!

It is such a shame, as the rest of the series was actually quite strong…. and it appears that I am not alone - although no one has obviously stated the central flaw in the fairytale ending.

Okay.. if you want to read it…. then READ MORE below… (more…)

Have you signed up for Script Frenzy?

Yes that’s right, I’ve barely finished Nanowrimo and now I have signed up for Script Frenzy and I am considering attempting writing 100 pages in 30 days. I already have three scripts competing for my loving attention during that month; jostling for first place.

I must be mad! I know I’m not drunk… not yet anyway, but I am working on it. ;0)

I’ve just been reading about the new offering from Adobe - ‘Story’ - designed to enable Adobe to encroach on the world of writing applications.

You can create Screenplays, Novels, TV Commercials etc, complete with Character Bios, Loglines and genre info etc as very starched and sterile looking ‘projects’. You can import from packages such as MS Word, as well as the usual offenders such as Final Draft and other screenwriting apps.

So far it looks like a very primitive version of something like Celtx and Scrivener, merely dressed in the Adobe CS look-and-feel. However, it’s real strength may be the ability to work online and offline, work collaboratively and benefit from the tight integration with other future Adobe apps - especially any production / breakdown software they might be planning, or OnLocation etc. The ability to share XML and meta data within the rest of the eventual new release of the video production suites, to build the end product, may be the real string in its bow.

It will be interesting to see how much this early version will eventually retail for. Right now you can obviously try it out for free.

Watch the video presentation (19 mins) HERE.

Find out more and download a trial version HERE.

The Hacintosh has landed - and is working perfectly, thank you very much.  The only thing different from that pictured is that when operational mine runs Snow Leopard 10.6.2 - the Mac OS.

It hasn’t been the easiest customisation and it is not complete. It took days of a very talented friend’s IT skills to negotiate the dodgy instructions previously documented by various non-English speaking IT geeks and a certain amount of trial and error; as we deviated from the plans to have it as a dual boot (Win XP and Mac) systems. Instead, it is nothing but Mac software, with various kernel extensions - to enable certain functionality, such as getting the sound working and customising the battery life indicator.

I have swapped the Wifi Card for a Dell 1390 Wifi Card, as the Mac OS treats it like the Apple native Airport card, and now the Wifi works. All I have to do now is upgrade the RAM before it is a fully functional writing productivity enhancing tool.

The main test - that of getting the machine to run iWork and Scrivener etc is complete. It works perfectly, albeit on a much smaller and less powerful machine than I am used to. Now all I have to do is put it through a week of rigorous testing, before I consider the customisation complete and sell my EEE PC. I may even stick an Apple sticker on the back. ;0)

Lessons learned are that if I had an £80 extra to spend, buying the Dell Mini 10 would have been far easier to do.

In other news, I have been greatly enjoying John Connolly’s “THE GATES” - a hilarious and very entertaining Adult tale for Children. I wish I had the merest ounce of his talent. It is definitely helping me to rediscover my love for the written word.

Yes I completed the first draft of my nanowrimo novel yesterday - 56,103 words in 30 days!

Unfortunately I was distracted by work stuff and the fact that I hadn’t slept in two days and missed my chance to bump up my final official word count, before they locked the servers. Oh well… at least I know I not only completed the challenge early, I also finished the actual draft.

I will now take a month off from working on the novel, in order to get some distance from it. I will go back to working on my long delayed feature script and then come back to it in the New Year and then do the major structural rewrite fixes; before eventually looking at the quality of the prose etc.

Some people are dying to read it of course - which is nice (I’m sure that won’t last once they read it ;0) - But it is a long way off from being readable or worth sharing. However, I may just look at putting together a test chapter to see if people enjoy it and want to read more. But such thoughts can wait. Before I do that I desperately need to get my fitness levels back up, enjoy some quality reading and find my love of the written word again and find my hidden style.

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to any Americans out there. I seemed to lose all track of days while doing this competition, besides knowing how many days I had left in the challenge of course.

In other news, the last short story I penned was deemed unsuitable for the chosen publication I had designed it for; which was a great shame. However, I have been assured by others that this is apparently nothing to do with the story’s merits or the quality of the writing. Anyway, I am sending it off to other publications for consideration, so I’ll keep you posted on further developments.

Also a friend at work has installed the Mac OS on my new netbook to create a Hacintosh! What a star! So I shall soon be able to use my favourite writing software on the move and be just that little bit more productive! Waheyy! Bring on the festive season and a New Year of writing!

Yes, for me Nanowrimo should be over. After all, I completed the 50k challenge days ago. However, despite [insane] work demands I have managed to knock out 2,000 words more. The only problem is that I still have a few words (2.5k at least) to knock out before I can consider this rough and ropey 1st draft complete.

Apparently you get a free voucher for a proof copy on Create Space as part of the deal. So even if I don’t share my dodgy novel, I will have a physical reminder of my effort; a manifestation of my blood sweat and tears.