Screenwriting: Breaking all the rules

Twenty years ago, I sort of stumbled into screenwriting, then embraced it in a big way. With writing partners, I wrote five feature-length scripts, one of which, SWIM FOR THE HORIZON, a family dramedy, was optioned to be a Movie of the Week. The deal fell apart, as such deals almost always do. This is a heartbreaker, this business. Someone said you have more of a chance of winning the Powerball.

I spent 15 years chasing the dream. I ran the DC screenwriting group for 10 years. I even wrote and then-co-produced a short that won a Telly and showed in NY and LA. Then I had to move to take care of my mother in Arizona.

A few years ago, I dreamed a script--the first night's dream was the High Concept--Law & Order but animated with animal cops, a wolf and a bee. The second night, in a dream, the title was suggested: PAW & ORDER.

I made some notes and put it away. A year ago, my mother, 95, left the planet.

Now, I have dragged out the notes---hmmm, not bad. Did I write this?

I fluffed up the notes into a 12-page sort of "pitch." No one does this. Against the rules. You need to pitch in person or write a 40-pp treatment or just use a two-sentence log line.

Also, I am way too old to be a screenwriter--and I am not a guy. Against the rules.

Oh, so what--what do I have to lose? My favorite phrase is "Nothing from nothing is nothing."

I also like the phrase: "Those who attempt the absurd achieve the impossible."

I tried to get a hold of Dick Wolf, the Law & Order guy. I tried every phone number I could find. The Hollywood Creative Directory, I learned, is out of business. A friend turned me on to a weird site of agents and production companies compiled by a guy who was mad at all of them and feverishly kept his "hate" list up to date. Dick Wolf either did not get my two snail letters or hates me, who knows.

I found an email for William Morris Endeavour (WME), a big agency, and remembered an in-person contact we had in the Wayback. No response. Tried again. No response.

Put up a website--since I love websites. It's http://pawandordermovie.blogspot.com.

I sent that to WME. They emailed. They even agreed to read my weird "pitch thing."

Their response--too edgy. Should I make it more boring?

But--and this is crucial--I can now go back to that agent if I generate interest on my own.

And a better class of rejections is always good. I think.

Want to find out what happens? Watch my blog site. I really need to write now--instead of chatter on. But I will check in there from time to time when I find a rule to break.

For now, my protags, Detective Ricardo Lupine and Sergeant Burt Buzzy, are clip art --clip art in search of Pixar, Disney, or maybe Netflix.

Can I get you a Coke?

Yes, Mom and Dad, your education dollar at work.

But still, it does require ingenuity and foster teamwork.

Check out how students at Purdue built a "Coke machine."

With a hat tip to Rube Goldberg, naturally.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEBJmZL8G1E

Uh-oh--here come cookies and toy cars

A Chile-based company called ThinkerThing has connected today's rage--3D printing--to the human brain.

Forget the tricky digital files these printers require--just go from brain to reality.

The first version uses an EmotivEPOC headset that reads brainwaves and detects emotion and facial expressions hooked to a MakerBot 3D printer.

The wearer watches what the thing comes up with on a screen and can edit it somewhat to look like what they were thinking.

The first product was an orange monster "thought" by an adult.

Chile pitched in some money so kids can experiment with this in school.

This stuff is moving fast. I can think up lots of jokes about it--but those don't print.

Check out http://www.thinkerthing.com.

Creativity for the heck of it

Daniel Pink is author of Drive and To Sell is Human--and an authority on the changing world of work.

He is also what I call a white tiger talker--he strides back and forth as he speaks--like the white tiger in his moat at the National Zoo.

Check out this video, though... You probably won't get a sore neck, no guarantees.

http://fora.tv/2012/05/01/WIRED_23_Artists_2_Physicists__1_Frog?goback=%2Egde_40908_member_258392020

Pink's point seems to be that employees and creative thinkers come up with their best stuff when not on the clock.

For the joy of it, basically.

He cites examples of artists--all their work is technically competent, but the non-commissioned output is deemed "better."

At Intuit, they needed to migrate to mobile, but before they could get a meeting going, their programmers knocked out some apps in the 24-hour creative period of the week.

The only rules for the work done at these free-for-all sessions at various companies? Not work-related, not grant-subsidized, and not boring.

Of course, the company retains a piece of the action--they aren't THAT altruistic.

My, my--always take a magazine to the beach

The Solar Ad Charger. In Brazil, they put this in a magazine ad for Nivea sunblock so the Ipamema Girl could let the ad soak up some rays and then she could use that little USB port thingie in the ad to load the energy into her smartphone.

The secondary message was: See? The sun is powerful enough to power a phone--so use sunblock.

I think I would be so freaked out over wearing a bikini and linking my phone to a big screaming hot star I might forget the sunblock.

Talk about an interactive ad!

Also--if this panel is so cheap they can put it in a magazine, it will be showing up lots of places.

Ready for READY PLAYER ONE?

I don't read much science fiction, so true sci-fi lovers may scoff--but I loved this book by Ernest Cline. I am vision-impaired, so listened to the audio read by Wil Wheaton, who did a fine job sounding jejune.

It's 2044 and things have gone to pot. The protag Wade Watts, known by his avatar name Parzival--after the knight who found the Holy Grail-- is living in a stack of double-wides in Oklahoma City.

That's his Wade body, the gooey fleshy one. His real self "lives" on The Oasis, a huge virtual world of thousands of planets and quests, many centering on the music, video games, TV shows and sentiment of the 1980s. He even goes to HS in The Oasis, while his real body half-freezes inside an abandoned van. You got it--the gas ran out.

The builder of The Oasis dies and leaves his gigantic fortune to anyone who can solve three quests. Of course, Wade gets into it and is lucky at first, solving the first one and getting some endorsment deals allowing him to live in an apt.

This is lucky because the evil industrial baddie is also trying to ace the three quests and get the money. This crew blows up his trailer stackpark and kills his friend, a nice little old lady, not knowing Wade did not stay there during the day.

I liked this because it detailed a world in which this youngster never left his apartment for six months--his real life WAS his unreal life. And it didn't seem that bad.

And he's smart, although smitten by a woman (he hopes) he has never seen in person.

We are getting there, aren't we?

Yes, this is The Big Bang Theory on 'roids. But it's fun.

Pickings from the creative garden

Ideo is that idea place--they are very clear on that--they are creative!

It also looks like a pretty cushy workplace--their Chicago office has a rooftop garden.

Naturally, being creative, they linked their garden with principles of creativity.

As they put it, "Gardening is generative, iterative, and user-centered." This means if you pick something, it better grow back. They also noticed, the less people had to work, the more they picked. Grab a berry and eat it. The eggplant--didn't that require cooking? Leave it.

Gardening hints at the approaches of the future instead of those tired old industrial rev things. We have to tend and steward creativity--encourage it. Humans must not overpower nature. (Is "steward" a verb?)

The creative leaders will be gardeners, not architects, letting products and systems evolve and unfold.

Careful guidance, not under someone's thumb. Even if it's green.

Do you think this stretching a point a little? The strawberries look good, though.

Some other readers thought this tripped the BS meter a little...Check out http://designthinking.ideo.com/?p=1110.