A tone most unusual
Tonight was my last night of the spring semester. Not only that, it marks the beginning of my halfway point at Scottsdale Community College. This time next year I’ll be (hopefully) getting my associate’s degree from the school and moving on to other ventures. I can’t say what those other ventures will be at the moment, but I have been heavily pondering all possibilities.
But, let us not speak of such things tonight; that discussion is meant for another time. At the instant, I’d like to expound upon my final thoughts for this semester and highlight some of the interesting and inspiring things that happened. Tonight, for example, was my final night of screenwriting II.
At this final class, I received the first half of my second act to “The Madcap Armament”, and I’m happy to say that I’m most pleased with the results. The Madcap Armament, you may recall, was the very first screenplay I ever started in screenwriting I.
When this semester began, I was unsure of what I would write in screenwriting II. The teacher offered the class the option to begin a new screenplay if they like, and I was very intrigued by this idea. You see, a mere week before the class, I had finally picked up the first and only act of Madcap (and was heavily disgusted by my fresh reading).
When I wrote Madcap in screenwriting I, the teacher was generally pleased with the writing. But, he criticized the story for being convoluted. Although I did well in the class and the screenplay was generally well received by my classmates, I was bothered by the convoluted viewpoint the teacher presented. I even disagreed with it. But, when I picked up the story at the beginning of Screenwriting II, my former teacher’s criticisms were crystal clear.
The Madcap Armament was a messy script. It was also fairly clichéd. It lacked an interesting group of core characters, and moreover, relied upon thinly veiled displays of morality to propel the story forward. Sadly, it was nothing like the story I saw in my head. The story I saw in my head was very clean, clear, and had a specific mentality. I couldn’t express what that mentality was, or what I even meant by mentality, but I later on learned that I was grasping at the “tone” or “voice” of my story. By extension, I was trying to develop my own “voice” as a screenwriter. No wonder I was having such difficulties. The tone I developed in Madcap wasn’t how I wanted to be defined.
So, I took a hint from my short film work, as well as the works of favorite writers and filmmakers, and tried to develop a tone for Madcap that represented my views on story and character. I’m still an amateur, and it’ll be years before I can confidently express my tone as a storyteller and filmmaker, but for the moment I think I could be defined as: wry, tongue-in-cheek, strange, mocking, self depreciating, and to a degree, deceptive.
With that in mind, I set out to fix the first act of Madcap as well as begin writing the second act. And let me say that if there’s one thing I’m pleased with this semester, it’s that screenplay’s progress. It really has turned out fairly decent. It’s still no masterwork, but it’s something that I can look at and say, “well, you can tell I’m at least trying to be a writer”. Highly satisfactory was my screenwriting II teacher’s comments on the screenplay: A tone most unusual – strong spine – strong core characters. It still has a long way to go, but I seem to have resolved the set of problems that plagued the screenplay when I first conceived of it.
I’m going to continue writing it throughout the summer, and I want people to read up on the progress of the story as I near completion. I’m especially interested in seeing what Gabe thinks of it. Gabe read Madcap when it was just a messy first act. I think, if only for kicks, it’d be fascinating to get his reaction on the current feel and tone of the screenplay – especially since it’s practically a different structure from the old version I wrote while sitting next to him in class.
The other interesting development that has dropped around the school for the last few days has been the heated discussion over “The Subject”. Well…not heated. I’d like to think that it was “heated”, but it isn’t. Make no mistake though; some people are talking about it. I think this discussion is mostly due to the fact that I ended up “rearranging” (insert: tore up) the school’s radiobroadcast room while filming the movie. Apparently, I threw the school radio station off the air for an hour.
While I’m always happy with progress and shaking the sheets, I do feel sorry if I caused some grief for members of the faculty. Truly, that wasn’t my intent while making the film. However, most everyone I’ve talked to has expressed a keen desire to see the film – even those upset by my shenanigans. As a result, I don’t feel terrible. I’ll just have to make plenty of copies of The Subject and enter it in as many festivals as possible. That way, everyone, including the fine folks at the SCC radio station, has a chance to see it.
All in all, these are just two of the fine moments that I lived through during this semester. Writing The Madcap Armament and filming The Subject has been a blast. I’d like to think these projects make up for all the nosebleeds, cancellations, deceptions, bitter crewmembers and unfaithful casting directors I had to endure. I can’t say what my remaining time at the school will be like, but if this remains my most difficult semester, I’m glad to pay the price. After all, I got a screenplay and short film out of the whole ordeal.
