QUADRIVIUM

Just finished my first re-read of the screenplay’s first draft after leaving it on the shelf for two and a half weeks.  And it is worse than I thought.  As I said to friend earlier, it’s filled with so many holes, Clint Eastwood could take a shot at it and miss.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve read lots of screenplay material — workbooks, blogs, and screenplays I could find floating around out there on the ‘net.   Actually sitting down to hammer one of these things out, though, has made the whole thing so much more real.

I started making a detailed chart of the plot, aiming to fix the weakness the first draft highlights.  I still have some pay-offs in desperate need of a set-up.  I’ve even started playing around with changing the MacGuffin.  And, the whole thing still needs a title.

A word about the MacGuffin — coming up with something compelling, without making it look silly, is a real talent.  The perfect MacGuffin — to me, at least — was the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark.    

Three months to deadline, folks.  So, blogging’s gonna be light for a while.  I’ll pop in here and there, but I can’t promise anything really substantial.  I, and the rest of the volunteer staff that used to contribute to Infuze are all waiting for this site to take off.  When it does, I’ll hopefully be returning to movie reviews.  Till then…

After my second cup of coffee this morning, I composed the following bizzare attempt at poetry that I share here now for the sole reason of asserting caffeine’s many and unappreciated uses…

Tommy lived in Gloucester by the slow billowing sea
And hoped to find true love there, though he lived inside a tree
No one thought it strange, you see, cause Tommy was a dugged
And everyone knows that duggeds live in trees so tall and rugged
 
The lady folk dislike them though, for duggeds smell quite foul
To win a lady over, a fair dugged must learn to howl
The howl was a long oft-practiced art, and many women it can woo
But the call does also summon beasts that turn duggeds into stew
 
Great care a dugged takes in composing his sing-song ballad
For he knows that one wrong note could land him in a villain’s salad
So Tommy perched on the tallest branch, took a breath and let it go
Hoping to find a lady lucky to be wandering there, to and fro…