Organization


I’ve been working on my novel lately (yes, it’s going very well, thank you) and have mainly managed to avoid the bogged down feeling writers sometimes get when they take on a large project. My first novel, the unpublished Harvestman, suffered from that fate — it took me years to compose it, primarily because the task was so big that often I just didn’t know what happened next.

This is similar to the problem screenwriters run into when they wade into Act II of a script. There’s so much white space up ahead that it’s daunting, and that fear (the only thing I can call it) can very easily shut your creativity down. And you get stuck.

So I did some research and found Scrivener’s, a software tool that helps writers get organized. Notes, storyboards, images, web links, et cetera are all easily categorized and filed away, so they’re always close at hand. Having the ability to access all that info (rather than a long, messy document with all sorts of formats and files) really does help in the writing process. It allows one’s (okay, my) imagination to bloom, to work unfettered of the worry of organization.

Disciplined idea management, I’ve learned, is key; the last thing a writer needs is to be unable to access or reach a certain place in the imagination just because she can’t find it, or heaven forbid, forgets about it. These are castles in the sky we’re building — one chain of conceptual logic depending upon another, and to lose potentiality just because we weren’t able to keep all of the ideas distinct while yet supporting each other is unacceptable.

So, I’m not trying to make a commercial for Scrivener’s here. Rather, I’m hoping to highlight the value of keeping good — and well organized — notes. It’s like a map — good to have a well-presented, realistic view of where you are, and where you’re going.

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In The Dark All Cats Are Grey

Creative projects come, and creative projects go. You work really hard on one or two, you think they’ll never be finished — and then lo and behold, one day they’re done.

I’m close now to wrapping up two simultaneous scripts — the feminist revenge thriller Your Ass is Grass (about which there is more on this site), and a contemporary fantasy/eco-thriller called Old Exit One, written in collaboration with my friend Brent Winter. They should be finished soon after the beginning of the new year, 2012. Amid the marketing/placement/development/hopeful funding of those indie film projects, I will move on to my next creative endeavor: a transmedia novel. It’s called In The Dark All Cats Are Grey.

Coined by my hero Ben Franklin, the phrase was originally meant to address the fact that even older women can be satisfying bed partners. But I’ve repurposed it for my own uses: The book is about a young boy in the early 20th Century who is caught up in a dangerous secret society built around the spiritualism (seances, mesmerism, mysticism) so popular in the Edwardian Age.

Is it literary horror? Is it a young adult thriller? The honest answer is that I don’t yet know. Stories have a way of becoming what they want to be as they are told. My script Your Ass Is Grass started out as a smartly campy nod to Southern B-movies with girls, guns and tits, and ended up becoming a somewhat grim, violent look at paranoid schizophrenia. So I try not to box projects in. What I do know is that I’ve done (and am doing) a ton of research on this project, and am looking forward to getting to it. My brain is buzzing with ideas, and the project is coming into focus. Less steampunk and more seance-punk, it’s about a subject I’ve been fascinated by for a long, long time.

Sometimes creativity is hampered by too much discussion about a topic. Sometimes the story is in danger of becoming a Twice-Told Tale. So I’ll stop talking about it now. But it’s worth bringing up, and I’m proud to announce the next Harrow Beauty Undertaking: In The Dark All Cats Are Grey.

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Men of Persuasion

A little short film some friends and I made last year was recently given the 2011 Best Western North Carolina Film by the judges of the Asheville Cinema Festival, the city’s primary fest. Named Men of Persuasion, the movie was written and produced by Jamie Parker, directed by me, and stars Willie Repoley, Joseph Guice, and Rebecca Morris. It’s a dark comedy about two professionals hired to argue two sides of every situation … until their own issues seem to get in the way.

The first movie I’ve directed that I didn’t write, it was a fun experience to be a part of something a little different — a comedy, someone else’s sensibility, and a stylized view of the professional world. Check out the trailer here:

Men of Persuasion: Official Trailer from Jamie Parker on Vimeo.

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Alison in Film Courage

Film Courage is a website and a podcast featuring the ins and outs of indie film, and was called “one of the top ten podcasts’ by MovieMaker Magazine. They recently asked me to write an article about Alison, and so I did.

Called ‘On a Tightrope and In a Hurry,” the article is essentially about the making of Alison, and shares an in-depth view of how we approached making an intelligent, low-budget feature. Aside from the DVD Director’s Commentary, it’s the most comprehensive version of how our celebrated little movie came to be.

Check it out here.

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Alison on Prescreen

Prescreen is a cool new online streaming service for smaller movies that have multiple critical accolades, but may have fallen between the distribution cracks. And for the next two months, you can catch Alison up there. Go check it out.

For Alison, of course, we didn’t pursue traditional distribution. Recognizing that the industry was changing — and also that Alison didn’t fit into any traditional genres or categories — I decided as an experiment to go it alone and pursue self-distribution. (The film Good Dick, made by my friend Marianna Palka, and the book Think Outside the Box Office helped). There were more movies than ever being made, and less shelf space for all of those movies, and frankly, fewer people were visiting mom and pop video stores anyway. I recognized Alison was a movie for the digital age — streaming, Netflix, iTunes, Roku, that sort of thing.

So far, it’s been great. What was designed from the beginning as a very modest movie costing a pittance compared to most films has been critically acclaimed, been bought and sold on iTunes alongside the big boys, and is finding a home in niche ‘net outlets like Prescreen. We’re happy. Have we made our money back? Not yet. Have we made an Alison-sized dent in the industry and gotten noticed and opened doors for other opportunities? You betcha.

I haven’t streamed it on the iPad yet, but I bet it looks beautiful there.

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How I Write

In honor of John August’s recent post ‘My Daily Writing Routine,’ I thought I would supply my own writing regimen.

A long time ago, I realized that getting into a specific routine with writing was probably a bad idea. First of all, I didn’t know if I could support myself solely from my writing, and thus create an everyday pattern (I was correct in that assumption). Second, I knew that any habit would eventually have to be broken. Habits are like addictions — crutches that you use to get stuff done. I didn’t want a crutch, I wanted empowerment. So I trained myself to be able to write any way, anywhere, at any time of day, providing I wasn’t tired or sick or something. That ability has served me well in the years.

So I don’t have a certain time of day that I write. I don’t have a certain place. I don’t even write in my home office. That’s for reading the news, emails, day job film work (like editing video) or even playing music (I record directly into my Mac Pro).

Lately, I like to write seated in a comfy chair in my living room, with my Macbook Pro in my lap. It’s a big room with a high ceiling. I like high ceilings. Somehow they make my imagination soar. Years ago, I read a book by the philosopher Gaston Bachelard called The Poetics of Space, which was an exploration of the phenomenology and perception of certain types of architecture. Bachelard made a point of discussing high ceilings and attics and rafters as a means of exploring flights of fancy, and I understand why. Looking up at exposed rafters while I daydream does seem to help engage the imagination.

On the other hand, when I started writing in earnest after college, I would go to a makeshift office in a basement storage area of my rented house — a small cubicle that had no headroom (or even room) at all. And it was fine. I was very productive there. The lesson for me is that you don’t need a certain space to write — you need your writing tools and your imagination … and that’s it. Sometimes a nice room with a window can actually be detrimental — you may spend too much time looking out, rather than looking in.

I write in Final Draft, V8, on a laptop. I use a Mac Pro with Final Cut Pro to edit movies and videos. I use Express Logic to record music (on which I play my 1998 Gibson J45, my 1989 Fender Telecaster, my 2000 Fender P-Bass, my M-Audio midi controller and my Kellii Ukulele).

I don’t usually go for a page count every day. In the early parts of a draft, there’s usually as much thinking as writing. Too much writing too early can in fact be detrimental. It’s akin to driving without knowing where you’re going, and then having to backtrack for hours — or in fact, days and even months. I do outline, or at least know where I’m headed. While I admire those writers who can literally make it up as they go along, I am not one of them; I can’t conceive of a proper beginning without knowing my ending.

Sometimes my various drafts can take years before I pronounce a script done. While I write all the time, I am a slow writer; I like to let the ingredients ferment, so to speak, and grow into themselves, like good wine, or food left overnight in the fridge. If it’s too fresh, it usually doesn’t feel finished to me. Sometimes this rule is broken: Alison, for instance, was literally made up as we went along. There was no time for fermenting; it was an exercise in which I challenged myself to collaborate and feel my way along. It seemed to work, but that’s not my usual process. I like to let the ideas become themselves so thoroughly that they won’t work any other way.

Sometimes I collaborate. For The Mourning Portrait, I worked with Patrick Greene. For an upcoming project called Old Exit One (a contemporary dark fantasy) I worked with a Chapel Hill, NC writer named Brent Winter, perhaps my oldest friend. In both cases I enjoyed it, and the other scribe brought something excellent to the table which I was completely unable to provide. I learned a lot from each of them, and will undoubtedly collaborate again in the future. But I do admit that I find writing by myself a little easier. For starters, you don’t need permission to change a word. Also, the communication factor — the back and forth — can be it’s own time-drain, as well. Like anything else, sometimes it’s just easier for you to do it yourself. And I find you can sometimes go deeper into your own unique vision — highlight obscure elements that you may not be able to when you’re justifying ideas to another person. You can bring out the work’s inner madness, which I think is necessary to making a good script. A good collaboration can also do that, but the visions you conjure are rarely (for better or for worse) your own.

All in all, I try not to have too much of a regimen, other than writing as much as I can. I might go a week without writing, or write every day for a month. But as long as I’m chugging out roughly one script a year, I’m happy.

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The Mourning Portrait Teaser

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, a few friends and I got together and shot a teaser for a feature film we were hoping to make. Here it is.

My friends Patrick Greene, Stephen Corbin, Kenneth Wilson and I went out into the woods of North Carolina and played around with a 35mm camera. Savanna James and Terry Nienhuis acted for us. We had fun. We shot in the same location in which Robert Redford shot his film The Clearing; the cabin was the same that Aidan Quinn stayed in for his role in Songcatcher.

We knew it was a good idea. The project got picked up by Belladonna Productions and is presently in development. We’ll see where it goes.

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Stakeland

Full disclosure: I know some of these guys, and share a production company with them (Belladonna Productions). That said, this is a really amazing movie you should check out right away.

Stakeland is a newish feature film by the always interesting Jim Mickle. Though the apocalyptic zombie/vampire/succubus/giant blob/whatever genre may be playing itself out by now, you should hold on for one m0re really good ride. Stakeland is an uncommonly exciting, intelligent and fresh take on what happens after everything falls to shit in the good ole US of A.

With a sly commentary on the state of the homeland (and even the world), Mickle and his collaborator (actor and storyteller par excellence Nick Damici) create a frightening and interesting take on what its like to live in a world where there are no second mistakes, where there’s no sentiment allowed, nothing but pure survival and red-blooded American values.

Never predictable, never taking the easy way out, it easily earns its poignantly original emotional payoff. Produced by indie horror film svengali Larry Fessenden through his company Glass Eye Pics, Stakeland is nothing other than a new horror classic. Keep your eyes on these guys. They’re gonna go far.

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Diabolique Magazine

So it looks like The Mourning Portrait is featured in the July/August issue of Diabolique Magazine, along with a brief interview by yours truly.

Diabolique is a mag from England specializing in the brainy side of horror — international horror films, gothic fiction, interviews with past greats. Their visual vibe hearkens back to Creepy Magazine and the Hammer Films — that retro, elegant, old school approach to horror which was so much more satisfying than the bloody, gory, ‘spill until it hurts’ vibe we have today.

The article, written by the talented Keri O’Shea, is very well-done and treads lightly upon the subject of post-mortem memorial photography, something that is easily sensationalized. But she did an awesome job.

The magazine is primarily a print rag, but there is a PDF download version. You should do yourself a favor and check it out …

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Monsters

The best film I’ve seen so far this year is a micro-budget, FX-laden, heavily-improvised mumblecore monster movie set in Mexico.

Yes, you read it right. Writer-Director-Everything-elser Gareth Edwards hit a major home run with his first movie, last year’s Monsters, which I still can’t get out of my head. Using an intriguing concept, bravura filmmaking techniques, appealing leads, amazing home computer FX chops, and a natural born filmmaker’s eye for drama and suspense, Edwards has created a most unlikely minor masterpiece. He shot it, directed it, edited it, did the incredible special effects on his home computer, all the while using non-actors as 90 percent of the onscreen talent. Just unbelievable.

Is it perfect? No. Lapses of logic, ham-handed political commentary, even some unintentional similarities to another noble attempt at mindful sci-fi, District 9, hobble it just a bit. But we tend to cut it some slack due to its micro-budget (I’ve heard somewhere in the low six figures), its amazing risk-taking and virtuoso filmmaking by Edwards. It’s really really good.

Edwards’ accomplishment looms large. This is a filmmaker of voluminous talent. Even his lead, the interestingly named Scoot McNairy, is going to be a big star. Count on it.

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