I AM LEGEND - REVIEW

No, no, no. I'm not referring the the Akiva Goldman penned, future blockbuster. I'm instead referring to the 1954 novel upon which the movie will be loosely grounded (from seeing the previews).

I want to begin with the utter shock and absolute let down of the ending. I bought the new paperback edition with Will Smith on the front and looking at the bkac page for reference prior to starting, I braced myself for a good 312 page ride. What I received instead was 159 pages of I AM LEGEND, and the rest filled with a collective of Matheson's other works. So imagine my surprise when here I am expecting another 153 pages of Robert Neville doing something heroic and I get the beginning of another story. So in the end, it took away a little bit, as I was thinking I had hit the midpoint rise in action, when instead it was the ending. Meh...

Overall, this book reaches far beyond the Vampire genre in the sense that the vampires are simply a backdrop for a very emotion, psycological journey into the mind of the last man on Earth. Anyone who is having trouble grasping the creation of characters should definitely read this book. Robert Neville is the eiptome of the fleshed out character we should all strive to create. By the end (grrr) you have so much concern and care for this fictional man, that you can almost smile at his last quote in the book.

The story begins bland, and never really changes, though you as a reader will. What I mean by this, is that around page 40, you've grown so accustomed to Robert's plight that this semmingly banal story of a man on his own becomes something of your own. We've all had moments of helplessness, adrenaline-based anxiety, and absolute terror; and that is what I AM LEGEND brings out of you. You begin remembering rushing home to make sure you locked the doors or turned the iron off. You remember when a loved one passed on and you were shaken to the core. It will pull a tremble form you when you reach the final scene of the story and you accept this simple, surviving man as a hero.

By far, this has to be one of the best character based, third-person narratives I have read in a long time, and I highly recommend you read it before the movie comes out. If only for true definition of what a character should be.

Rod

Pilot Time!

Okay, so it's been a while since I posted but this one is a good one and shifts the focus back to what this blog is about. Screenwriting.

I'm writing a pilot for a one hour drama that I think has potential.

Thanks for reading!

Rod

Simon and the Skull Plate

No, this isn't some fictional tale, or PBS propaganda about proper skull hygiene.As most of you know my kid, Simon turned one-year old on the 5th, and then one week later was in surgery for a malformed skull plate above his left ear. Nothing major at the moment, but as he grew older, it would cause his face to twist and deform. Thus, the wife and myself chose to have the surgery done to correct the problem.Let me just say, that if you have children, you have no idea the complete lack of control that you feel when you hand your child, drunk from pre-meds, over to another human being you met only an hour earlier. In your mind, you have the full knowledge of what's about to happen. The doctor's have told you about the procedure, warned you of the risks, and as optimistic as we all try to be, there is that human side that wonders if this might be the last time that you see your baby boy alive. The eruption of love that fills you is indescribable. You've never wanted to hold him closer, kiss his little cheeks a million times, or just look into his big blue eyes until to pass out...but now, you try to squeeze it all into the few minutes before the nurse carries him off to the OR. It sucks.

The time in the waiting room passed like days, with my six year old wanting to make constant trips to the cafeteria and my wife wanting me to stay with her for support. Family and friends were there, rooting for the home team, but I honestly wonder how far from that waiting room we really were. Physically, we were sitting and listening to their remedial anecdotes about the good in life, and God's love, but this only fuels the guilty thoughts of all the bad things I've done and I wonder if today is the day where God's going to check my ticket and make me truly sorry for the shit I've done.In the end, the surgery went off without a hitch, and four days later he was back home, like nothing had ever happened, save a wicked incision and some swelling of his face.

A week after that, he was all boy again. He ran around the house trying to touch things he shouldn't, he pulled his older brother's hair while he was sleeping, and he laughed whenever I did something stupid for him. I don't know how to describe it other than blessed.

Rod

Fund Raising for Hell Raising

Hopping on the back of great minds like JJ Abrams, I am beginning a viral marketing campaign. You needn't know the details, but you must know that I'm a little short in the skin (WALLET).

Phase 1 of this project will cost me $10.00.

You can send donations via paypal to RODGRAPHX@YAHOO.COM

I kick ASS! And thanks for your support!

Rod-ish

World of Nerdcraft and Screenwriting

On any given day, when I'm not at work or visiting the kids, you will find me in my room. Like a darkened abyss, with nothing but the ceiling fan for white noise, I sit with headphones on, staring blankly into my laptop like I'm waiting for it to say something funny.

What am I doing? One of two things. Screenwriting, or (more times than none) playing the World of Warcraft.

Fuck, I hate to even say it out loud, but it's who I am and it's what I do. Internally I struggle to find a common ground between the two, but since the Warcraft movie is in pre-production it seems as though my dreams of writing said movie are lost. So where is the common ground.

(Pause for a few moments while I search under the bed, night stand, and desk for what they have in common)

FOUND IT!

EQUILIZED!

Before I describe my middle ground in a single sentence or less, I think I should cover exactly how Warcraft works for the "WTF is that" people.

It's a game. A Multi-Player, Massive, Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) which boasts a subscribership of almost 10 million members world-wide, paying $14.00 bucks a month. Based somewhere between D&D and LotR, you can choose from a menagerie of races, classes and looks. So even with that many people, on multiple servers, the chance of running into a Blood Elf Rogue that looks exactly like you is almost impossible.

The world itself is exactly as described...massive. Two continents in the base realm of Azeroth, and another larger continent through the Dark Portal in Outlands. Each player can choose from professions like skinning, mining, leatherworking, enchanting, etc, etc to make money in the game. There are auction houses, inns, castles, dungeons, battle grounds (PVP) and interactive grouping and raiding. It is, in itself, a self contained alternate reality. Which is probably why mofos are getting divorced, losing their jobs, and going to rehab from playing.

But here is where I have found my middle ground. It's nothing for me to spend 5-6 hours a day playing this shit. I run around slaying animals and people like Ron Jeremy slays the Vaja. I'm a badass and know it. But what the hell is it doing for me in the real world....nothing. So I'll sit there for hours devolving into a lazy, pale piece of Wowing shit when I should have been writing the entire time. So this is what I figured out. I love Warcraft, but I NEED to write. Thus, I have found my comprimise. I'll take turns. Everytime I finish a quest, I'll write a page and won't go back to WoW until the page is complete. If I'm outlining, then I'll set a time limit that I will write for before going back to WoW.

This could work...I'll let you know.

Rod

I'm the jugganaut, Bitch!

Okay, well not really, but right now I lack even the minimum amount of energy or excitement to put together a 2 minute short film such as the Jugganaut, bitch. I am finding that I am in one of those moods where just being awake makes me aggrivated. I don't want to write, work, play a game, eat, drink, smoke, or even fucking move. It's like I'm suffering from LIFERS BLOCK.

I'm not depressed or anything, just lack the major motivations to do anything more than pound away on this little keyboard, while staring at this massively intimidating screen. I have ideas, even now, surging through my head for my next spec, but they remain an accumulating jumble of shit in my brain because I lack the fucking energy to write them out. At this pace, I should have the entire thing written in my head, word for word, by the time I actually sit down and right it.

...fuck...

I like that word. Not because it's bad or because my wife says it in conjuction with other dirty words during happy-time. No, I like it because it's simple, smooth and flows like a good drag from an even better cigar. It's familiar, like an old friend and who do we all turn to when we're sucking ass for motivation? That's right! Old friends. So fuck, fuckety fuck...fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck this, I'm going to smoke.

My New Tattoo!!!

Ahhh...the glorious, numbing pain of a new tattoo. Now I'm not some biker-styled, skull sporting badass, but I love a good tattoo. I FUCKING LOVE THEM!

But you know what I hate...shitty tattoos. Looking to the pic to your right, I want you to notice something...you see it...DETAIL. I wish I had a better pic, but I suppose I'll take another one after it heals. Detail, though, is the main ingredient in a great tattoo as much as it is in a great screenplay. When you look into the eyes of that Greek warrior on my arm (which was meant to signify pain and defeat) I want you to feel that pain. Even the greek letters on the helmet mean 'pain' in Greek. But if the detail had been horrible and the eyes came out cartoony, then you would not have felt the deep seated pain that was throw into this tattoo at it's conception. If I wanted cartoony, I would have asked for something cartoony. It would be like writing a drama starring a clown on speed. NOT SERIOUS.

The Greek warrior part of the tattoo was done in Souda Bay, Crete (Greece) in 2004 right before my nervous breakdown. I was on a train of drunken pleasures and deep rooted self hate that made me feel like shit. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried to guard myself from the bad things in my life, they still got through. So when it came time to get a tattoo, I wanted three thing...I wanted something to signify that I got it in Greece (warrior), I used the helmet to signify the armor I had used to attempt to keep the bad things out, and then I put those painful, teary eyes showing defeat, because no matter how hard I tried, I failed. Defeated.

The swords also have a dual meaning in that the scimitars are the national blade of Iraq (I made that up, but the fuckers are on statues and shit everywhere) and I wanted something to remind me that I was there, to signify my time there. The second meaning of the swords is an easy one: Connor and Simon...my two sons. They are literally two of the most important people in my life, and the only two I'd lay under the blade to give my life for.

Without these intricate details, and bold meanings behind the tattoos (which will eventually be part of a half-sleeve) they wouldn't be what they are. When you look an artist in the eyes and tell him, "This is the worst time in my life...make it show," they get it and want to put that pain and defeat in there. As screenwriters, we need to be no different.
My point is that when it comes to writing scenes that keep a tone, I am often guilty of writing something hilarious when it needs to be serious, and vice versa. I'm learning and slowly growing out of that, but when I think of the screenplay I am working on now, I ask myself...is this a Greek Warrior or Calvin and Hobbes on my left ass cheek? If you spec, spec something that means something to you, because it's so much easier to relate and put the best and worst of yourself into it. Create those characters that remind you of the people you love, hate and feel for. Put them into situations that are comparable to things you've been through. You're essentially tattooing yourself when you spec write...so ask yourself, when a stranger sees that tattoo (spec) do you want them to say, "Wow, that is just...awesome," or, "I don't get it?"
Of course I'm going to use my tattoo to turn this into a screenwriting essay...it's a screenwriting blog, get over it.

PS...Ignore the scrawny arms...the camera takes off 15 inches.

Rod

How Big Are My Nuts?

Two years...as of November, I have two years until I can either wrap up my sails and get out of the Navy, or I can reenlist for another two to six years. Now, I'm not trying to sound like a whiner, or anything, but FUCK ALL, that is a pretty hard decision to make. Let me walk you through this for a minute.

I joined the Navy in 1999, straight out of high school because I seriously had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. And it was a great choice, because I was a wisked loser. But over the last eight years, I've gotten married, had a kid or two, pretty much saw all of the world, and just enjoyed the ride. Some of my greatest memories thus far have come from being in the Navy. I mean, how many people can say that they ran up on stage at the David Letterman Show during Fleet Week and gave Dave a Dixie-cup (Our cute, white sailor hats) and said, “You’re the shit, Dave?” How many people have scars from getting wasted, forgetting that they're not a Navy SEAL and jumping through the roof of some poor Frenchmen's garage in a covert op to "stop the terrorist?" My point is this...I love the Navy. Whole-heartedly, I do. It’s in my blood, it’s in my heritage, and it’s in my heart.

You see, the Navy is just like any other job while I’m in the US, and not deployed. I wake up at 0430, get my shower, get dressed, fight traffic and report to work no later than 0545. I struggle to look busy, take long smoke breaks, and even longer lunches. I have ten different bosses of various ranks and sizes. It's the epitome of an Office Space environment, only when the shit hits the fan, the guy writing memos about TPS reports is the President himself. Those are the times I love. When something global happens, or when I see an operation on the news that I had a hand in planning at some point or stage. But this is just the day to day.

A deployment is the shit! The shit, people! Now, while it sucks to be away from my family for six-12 months at a time, there is no freedom like the open seas. When the only hindrance of the sunrise, set, horizon and heavens is a large white fluffy cloud. The action at sea is real with fire drills weekly, weapons checks daily, navigation details whenever, and every now and then you get to witness something truly beautiful that you never knew existed (you'd never get it, so I wouldn’t describe any further), but you get my point. Steaming on the open ocean, in my opinion, can only be shadowed by childbirth, your own wedding, and the first time you discovered porn.

I love my job.

So here I am, asking myself, do I really have the nuts to bail on this when the time comes? Do I even want to? Pay wise, with all benefits, allowances, special pays and bonuses...I make around 50-60,000 a year (relative to a civilian job). I can live on that, so it's not a matter of money. It's a matter of creative expression and wanting to do what's right in my heart, by me.

When I sit at my laptop, and I stare at that empty first page, with my outlines, and my stack of character notes, and it all starts filtering through my head to where in a few hours I can have 30 pages done. They are a shabby 30, but I've at least written them all. I once finished an entire first, sloppy, rough-ass draft in 15 hours of binge writing. Not because I was on a deadline, nor because I didn't feel like sleeping. It was because I wanted to tell the story and couldn't stop. I actually got off of work, went home, started writing, finished the spec, took a shower and went right back to work. I was fueled by passion to finish...passion to be a writer for that small amount of time.

When I finished my latest rewrite of The Yank, there was an accomplishment in my heart, this feeling of glowiness, that made me smile with more satisfaction than the day I landed in Iraq. This is why I feel like I’m in the wrong place in my life, that I’m not where God wanted me to be. So this is my dilemma now...get out and chase the dream of screenwriting, or stay in and never truly have the freedom to chase anything more than a blip on my radar screen. How big are my nuts?

My problem with Zoetrope!

Ahoy ye swabs...Rod here, back with my second post to enthuse the masses. Been a while, but shit happens (ironically in conjuction with my family vacation). So without further ado...

Over the last few weeks, I have been doing a good amount of pot stirring over in the world of Zoetrope. com. Formerly a decent sight for workshopping screenwriters and such, it has devolved into this cavernous hell of dreamers, has-beens, and never-will-bes. It's sad!





So anyway, I've been over there starting a fair amount of shit for the purpose of shutting down some of the assholes over there who are passing off their bullshit for gospel. I know, I know...why should I care? The answer is simple...knowledge.

When it came to writing, a year ago I knew dick. Still don't know it all, and probably have a thousand grammatical errors in this blog, but I don't care, because I'm still growing as a writer and embrace this suckage. The problem with Zoetrope is that you have people over there, who I won't name, with maybe one or two direct to DVD creds, passing information like Rohypnol at a rave. These junior writers are overwhelmed with what and what not to do's, how and how not to writes, and worst of all...BULLSHIT LIES!

I think it's sad, and almost despicable that these old men and women, seemingly untalented and well versed in the art of bashing, are using these poor dreamers who still have a chance to make themselves feel better about never making it. In essence, it's the jealousy factor that motivates them.

OLD, BITTER MAN + NEW ASPIRING WRITER = BASHING, DISENCOURAGEMENT, LIES, ETC.

It needs to stop, and so be it if my account is deleted for bashing some dude in the public, because hopefully one of those new writers will be able to see in those moments that the man or woman they were looking up to, was only setting them up for disaster. As screenwriters, we all need to realize that our shit sinks and be able to describe it in a sentence or two...get it, LOGline...but we need not bash our fellow brothers and sisters in the ways of the pen. My goal has always been to become a screenwriter, and I'll be damned if I ever stop. I may never get a credit to my name, but it will never stop me from trying. And I will always share what knowledge I have with others, even if it's second-hand, to ensure that if I don't make it, maybe someone else will have a shot.

But what do I know...I'm just a noob.

Rod

The Yank...Genesis

SUPER: June 29, 2007

After the countless, and innumerable glances at the personal blogs of a wannabe screenwriters, I have decided that it is time to join the crowd. This isn't your basic blog, based solely on formatting rules, and three-act structure, but instead will be a fuming platform so that I may share my frustrations with you all en masse.

Now, to play catch-up, I will take you back to where it all began...

One year ago, I sat down with my laptop in a coffee shop in the Bahrain, snuggled deep into a cup of Joe, and stared into a blank screen. I had but one goal. Write. Not being a fan of outlining at the time, I hadn't a clue what I wanted to write. What was the story I had wanted to tell?

Now, let's flashback a little farther, a few weeks to a month prior to my rendezvous with this cup of Joe and an empty laptop screen. To a day at the pool with a guy that we'll call Francis.

Francis was a whore-monger. No offense to him, but he was and he proudly knew it. With Spring setting in, he had taken to spending long hours by the pool at our apartment building gawking at the abundant, multicultural 'ass pot' that came down to sunbathe during the afternoons. The Brits, the Filipinos, the Spaniards...if there was a country that half accepted the English language, they had a representative at that pool everyday, scantily clad in dental floss and sea shells. But Francis had been there. In six months he had run through every split-tail of foreign decent at least four nights a week. He no longer even kept notches on his belt, but instead hung country flags around his bedroom. He must have had about nineteen flags total, but the one he wanted, had purchased, and was waiting to hang still lay folded into a neat square, in its original plastic wrapping in a drawer in his shitty apartment. It was the bright red one, with the yellow hammer and sickle.

Da, that one! The good ole' former Soviet flag. Francis wanted himself a Ruskie!

Contract workers were commonplace in Bahrain, and without a doubt was the preferred means of employment amongst business owners. Foreigners (mostly Filipino) would come over and work for less than 700B.D. a month, with room and board being provided, and the owners of the establishment made off cheaper in the long run than hiring local Bahrainis. Now the Russians were on a similar contract, but not like Filipinos. The Filipinos were mostly waiters and house bands...the Russians were dancers. Not in the Texan, single-mother sort of the word, but moreso in the elegant-chic that exists between stripper and ballet artisan. They weren't dirty or nude, but dressed in sheer belly dancer outfits and could seduce even the grumpiest sheik with nothing more than their eyes and a flick of their hand. Thousands of Bahraini Dinars were spent a night by the Saudi sheiks and oil tycoons that came to visit on the weekends...all for a chance of getting some red ass. Which we Americans know is all too futile, because the second you give a dancer cash, you go from prospector to customer, and they can’t fuck customers. In Bahrain it was slightly worse, being that if a dancer was caught railing customers, she was normally reassigned and deported.

So there Francis found himself, by the pool, dreaming of mounting his first Russian. To go Rocky IV and drop nuts on his own personal Ivan Drago. She had jet black hair, dimpled thighs, and was waning in her years as a dancer. Her name was Victoria...and Francis fucked her.

After weeks of fuck-buddiness, Francis became entangled in a love affair with this sweet little Russian girl to the point that he wanted to free her from her contract, quit the Navy and move back to Russia with her! He had it all planned out to the finest detail. The problem was that they were far-fetched details, and not nearly realistic. In the end, her boss eventually found out, her contract was terminated and she was flown to work at a different club in Australia somewhere. Francis never saw her again, but something tells me that the British girl he began dating made him forget all about it.

Throughout his relationship with Victoria, I often teased him that she was probably a mafia princess, and that if he wasn't careful he'd find himself a marked man. Being the redneck that he was, he said, "Shit! I'll smoke the whole damn family!" And I thought to myself, That's rich. One American taking out the entire Russian mafia for love.

That single line repeated over and over in my head for weeks, and built slowly into one of those thoughts you have and say, “That would make a good story.” Thus began the birth of my screenwriting endeavors.

Now…that was over a year ago, and things have changed a shit-ton since then. How so?

Keep reading.