Stage to Screen, Screen to Stage

Tsk. Kids today. Metal music. Writing things on the ground in blood.

A lot of people have been reporting on the Screen adaptation of Yasmina Reza's Tony Award winning play God of Carnage, as a cast was finally confirmed; Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz, and Matt Dillon (who's role I'm hearing might actually be recast, we'll see), & to be directed by Roman Polanski.

Yeah, I guess I won't get political here, but I'm not excited about Roman Polanski directing it (ohhh how plebeian, amiright? - overlook it, he's an artist!) . It'll be filmed in France as he's a fugitive here, but it looks like the play will still be taking place in Brooklyn as per the American adaptation, despite the fact that the original play, Le Dieu du Carnage was French and took place in France as far as I know. But yeah, American audiences and the like.

The play is coming to The Goodman Theatre this season, so I'll see it in a few months, but I haven't yet. Thus, I don't know what Reza is talking about when she says

Did you write a separate screenplay?
No. He wanted to mainly follow the play, so we decided to change the beginning and to end in a slightly different way, and we were in the process of making some changes in the middle, but mainly the same.

Playing Pretend: Poll

EDIT: Do you guys see the poll or is it not showing up and I'm hallucinating? Because sometimes it's there, and sometimes it isn't. If it stinks, just respond in the comments.

This is where a Playing Pretend blog of it's own would come in handy; I want to talk improvisation - the awful set I did in class and then particularly talk about my own mistakes in an audition I had, but I feel weird coming to Throwing Ink to do it. So for those people I *know* read the blog (blogger stats got my back yo, I know y'alls exist - comment once in a while so I don't feel so lonely! Also, publicly follow! Seeing your avatars on my page also makes me feel cozy and loved and less lonely just like comments do!) I present to you a poll:

           

If I get mostly "yes"es I'll probably change the subheading of the blog to... I dunno yet, and I'll feel safe posting more theatre-y stuff.

I was going to write about the improv in this here blog post but the wind got taken out of my sails a bit by having to make a quick exit out of the physical location where I was originally blogging from. Also, I got emailed a call back for that audition I mentioned (yay!), and while I still want to talk about the improv mistakes I had and what I learned from it (and how it applies to writing), I'm going to wait a bit. I'm preoccupied right now and want to get this poll up.


Note: If the poll isn't showing up, it asks:  "Would you be okay with my including more acting/theatre stuff in this heretofore "screenwriting" blog?"
Options are:
"Yes - hearing about acting and theatre will be interesting and helpful!"
and
"Hells No! - This piece be called Throwing Ink - A Screenwriting Blog for a reason!"

Feel free to respond in the comments if the poll is a fraud.

Playing Pretend - Pacing

Here at Throwing Ink, I'll occasionally be talking about theatre (and often connect it to film craft) as it's my other "thang". I was going to do it in a whole separate theatre blog, but... that didn't make a lot of sense for me - I have little time to blog as it is and don't want to go a month without new posts in one blog because I'm posting all in the other one. Plus, they connect. I'll be calling these segments "Playing Pretend" and will have a little fun logo eventually. But for now...

She's gonna hurt her eyes, embroidering in poor light like that...

While stage plays and screenplays are certainly different beasts, they share basic qualities of story telling. These are are stories which are written primarily in dialogue, on average are told in roughly two hours, and are performed and meant to be watched. While stage plays are far more limited in it's opportunities for visual settings and effects, scene changes, and general scope, I think the qualities that make for a good film, story wise, will usually make for a good play and vice versa. Why is it, then, that plays seem to often get a pass with poor pacing? Not that all film has a handle on it either - art and indie films in particular often fall into a pacing mud puddle, but it's as if because supposedly "cultured" and "intelligent" people like theatre and art and indie films the audience is meant to overlook the poorly measured acts and lack of forward story movement; that we should pat ourselves on the back because it means we have a greater attention span and appreciation for something more cerebrally demanding. But a good story is a good story.

What Has Happened To Me?

She's got laser eyes. She knows what you're thinking.

Where have I been?

At Go Into The Story, Scott posted an interview with Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell, writers of the currently in theaters movie, Get Low. And I read it.

I knew absolutely nothing about this movie.

I saw the poster last week when I passed by Landmark Theater on my way to buy a cookbook from Borders. It caught my attention, but for only a second, and probably only because I had never heard of the film. It's not a very good poster, and the only thought I really had besides "Whoa, hey Robert Duvall, haven't seen you in a while" and "Oh, Sissy Spacek" was "... Get Low? Like... Lil' Jon "Get Low""?

Public Service Announcement

Pitiful! Just Pitiful!

These are my new glasses. Kanye said they tight. New trend. 2011.

Nathaniel over at Film Experience Blog posted here about this NYTimes article here, talking about TV vs Film and whether Film sucks right now, compared to TV.
I agree with what Nate said, basically that they're comparing the best of tv with the lesser of film, and a bunch of other things. Read his stuff yourself. What I want to get around to saying is, the article/blogpost particularly caught my attention because just last night, I texted to my boyfriend that I needed to become a better cinephile - I watch far more tv series (not on actual television mind you - internet & DVD o'course) than films. The hours I dedicate to television is at least 1000% that of film (seriously, at least - it's probably more like 5000%, maybe more)- and this isn't a matter of spending $11 at the theater - the majority of dvds in my collection are movies I haven't seen! I buy them at $5 and then let them dust. And to better illustrate the severity of my problem, here is what I've watched in the last 4 weeks or so (now with math!):

I Think I'm Back Again. Again.

Self Portrait

I dropped out of blogging due to computer problems, but then shame on me - I never came back (and then the computer malfunctioned even worse a couple months ago and I lost my writings - I think it was punishment for my extended break).

But I'm back again, again. And this is what I'm doing to really get back:

1) Reading my blog roll! I haven't looked at some most any of these for months (I'm awful). 

2) Re-Rewriting the screenplays I lost in the fire hard drive failure.

3) Compiling a list of movies that affect me, reading those screenplays.

4) Reading the new screenplays all the cool bloggers are talking about.

5) Compiling motivational soundtracks (yeah.) Edited to Clarify: Not like, "Eye of the Tiger" and "You're the Best Around", though I have one of those too, but like, mood music for the screenplays I'm working on.

So, all you kids who are bad, like me, and not doing the things you should be doing, Get On That! It's fall, losers, back to school time. The school of life and hard knocks. Word to your mother.

And P.S. The soundtrack isn't procrastinating if John August says you should do it, right?

Comments on Another's Rundown

Over at Script Shadow we have this week's Weekly Rundown. These are the bits that caught my attention, and a few brief thoughts on them.

First, a King Arthur movie to be helmed by Guy Ritchie is in the works. It'll be written by John Hodge (Trainspotting). Variety Article.

The first thing I thought was "weren't there a couple big budget King Arthur movies like, 5 years ago?"