morning conspiracy

 

 

This morning there was —

A total conspiracy against Max sleep. First I forgot to turn the sleep timer on on the TV last night and for some reason programmers think TV should be really loud in the morning [do morning people really like louder TV?, no wonder we do not get on] so BOOM! 8 am strikes and the TV jumps 2,000 decibles. Ahhh! Begin emergency bleary eyed search for remote control to silence the beast —

Whew! Found it.

I collapse back into bed.

Immediately the smoke alarm starts doing it’s “I have a low battery” beep. This is something that cannot be slept through. And involves hauling a ladder out of the closet to climb to rip the smoke detector from the wall, hoping I am ripping the right smoke detector from the wall.

This is not enough. That battery may be low, but not low enough, it is still beeping. So I commit emergency surgery on the smoke detector and rip out its inside battery and stash it in the pantry to quell its slowly dying beeps.

Silence yay!

I crawl back into bed.

Immediately there is some sort of S.W.A.T. frenzy [at 8 am, seriously?] and sirens go crazy outside. Multiple sirens. And keep going. And keep going. And keep going. Really nearby.

For an hour.

Some mornings you are just not meant to sleep.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is waking up 4 by mansel davies

open seats 10.28.10

 

I have one seat open in the 5150 workshop, one seat left in the January pitch class, and four seats open in the Nov visual writing class. Also, the March high concept writing class is now open for registration.

*high concept writing is very popular please register early to reserve a seat in that class

 

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:::class info:::

*update: the pitch class is full, the next pitch class will be 09.13.11

 

 

the trench

 

There is a story —

Behind this. But I won’t tell you that now. I will tell you after.

 

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The Trench

I am going to bring this up now because this is about the point when some stories start to look impossible to finish, deal with, there are too many pieces, you start moving them around, none of them seem to fit –

I know this point in the story very well. I hit it every single time I am working on a script. And I have been working on scripts for over 15 years and have literally lost track of how many scripts I have written. [This may or may not be comforting, hmm. But at least know you are not alone.]

When I was in my teens, I used to do a lot of line art. And I was considered a pretty gifted artist. Here is the thing about line art. Every single time I was working on a drawing, there would come this moment of what I guess I can only call despair. I’d be partway through a drawing and it would look awful. None of the lines looked like they were ever going to become an image. It all looked like a terrible mess. I’d stare at the page and think, Oh this can never come together. My impulse would be to rip the hell out of the page and just give up.

Here is the thing though. You can’t do that when a model is sitting there for you to draw. You’d look too damn stupid. So I would keep going. Not because I thought it was going to work. Because it was too embarrassing after an hour drawing a person who was sitting there for you to rip up the page and say, Oh this won’t work let’s quit and go home. And then, something magic would happen. I’d keep adding lines to that drawing. And, at some point, it would take form. The tangle and mess would disappear. And there would be an image that made sense and was beautiful and did work.

After that happens enough times, you start to take it on faith. You start to know, even though you just hit the trench where all those lines look like they are never going to come together, when everything looks hopeless and overwhelming and like it will never work? If you just ignore that and keep going, they will, ultimately come together.

The trick is, to keep going.

Writing is just like that. With every story, it starts out an idea. And you start putting words on a page. And at some point in there, you will hit that trench. It will feel like everything is out of control, like it will never all come together, like it is too overwhelming and nothing makes sense and there are holes all over you will never fill.

The trick is, to keep going.

If you stop there, you will never finish. If you keep going? It will all come together.

We’re missing some Week Six assignments this week. I figure that means a few people are in the trench.

Don’t stay in that trench. Keep going. I promise, if you keep going, you will get out.

 

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Okay, the story — My Gotham classes are ten weeks long. Every class, about Week Six, some students start crashing. It’s tough to go ten weeks. It is more tough to go my class ten weeks. And it is a beginning class so a lot of new stuff at students thrown all at once. Last week we were hitting Week Seven and there was some crashing going on — that is what I told them.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from jeremy pierce

congratulations to julie

 

Big congrat’s —

To my student Julie Howe who just won best comedy screenplay at Austin Film Festival. Yay yay yay!

 

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*pictured above, 5150 members Lauren Sheppard & Julie Howe at Austin Film Festival

 

space, light, texture

 

“Visuals are the weakest element in most script pages I see and Visual Writing is the first class I created because I thought this was the most important missing subject in screenwriting classes. Most writers sit down and think story. But a film is not just story. A film is, literally, moving photographs. And if you don’t know that, if you don’t write that, you are not writing a film. And nobody reading the script will ‘see’ a film. Because you didn’t write one. This is why space, light, and texture are the building blocks
during the first week in Visual Writing. Because space, light and texture are the building blocks creating an image on film — and so, the building blocks creating ‘film’ using just words on a page.”

 

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– max adams discussing :::visual writing:::

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from tänze des grauens

we interrupt this broadcast

 

To bring you sleeping puppy yay!

 

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[Best youtube comment: "His dream's collapsing. GIVE HIM THE KICK!"]

 

photo day!

Some photos from my shoot with brilliant and talented photographer Deborah Chesher.

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open seats

 

I have one seat open in the 5150 workshop, three seats left in the January pitch class, and seven seats still open in the visual writing class.

*irony, everyone wants to know how to sell, no one is worried enough about how to write, hmm

 

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:::class info:::

 

 

the max rules

 

I go to this party. I am talking to my friends Richard and Patrick. My essay contest for a Nicholl date comes up. They think it is funny as hell.

Later Richard is talking. [Richard and Patrick are both also Nicholl fellows.] He says, You know, if I heard just that a Nicholl fellow was running a competition for a date to the Nicholl awards I would be appalled. But if I hear it is Max, it is perfect and makes sense.

It occurs to me somehow I have made a life in which there are Max rules for me that only apply to me and no one else.

 

racist field trip

 

This is hilarious and awful and I love this guy and I love his mother more.

 

visual writing & the art of the pitch

max adams, photo by deborah chesher

I am filling seats in the next two ONLINE classes:

Visual Writing which is next up and begins 11.16.10
The Art of the Pitch which begins 01.11.11
_________________________________________________ _____
Visual writing is about setting scenes in ways that will make readers “see” a film or scene. This is especially important for film writers — without visual impact, scripts do not feel like “movies” to readers. Using light, space and texture as scene setting elements as well as making characters visually vivid to a reader and making action visual are a few of the elements covered in Visual Writing.

The Art of the Pitch is about pitching stories in ways that allow executives and producers to “get” and buy scripts and script concepts — and sell them to the studio head upstairs who cuts the checks. There are elements a pitch must contain to make it a viable project for a studio executive. And there are ways to create premise statements that make stories more appealing to people queried which is pretty important — if you don’t get read, you can’t get sold. These are some of the elements covered in The Art of the Pitch.

More info about upcoming classes: :::classes:::
To register for a class drop me a note via the contact form: :::register:::

 

_________________________________________________ _____
*note, the art of the pitch is new, very popular, and already more than half full,
visual writing is not far behind, please do register early if you wish to attend either class, seating is limited to 12 students per class and once rosters hit the limit, well that is it no class for you.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is a shot of max taken by
deborah chesher

strings!

 

 

the awesome shoes

 

I am —

At a shoe store in Hollywood. I see these awesome shoes. God knows how I will walk in them they have what look like seven inch heels and three inch platforms but screw it, they are awesome, I try them on.

I look like a three year old in her mother’s heels.

Sigh.

I put them back.

I wander about looking at other shoes and end up back by the awesome shoes and there is the goddess. She is six feet tall if she is an inch. She has legs that are at least double the length of her body. She is stacked. She is tan. She is trying on the shoes.

The shoes look amazing on her.

There are two colors.

She can’t decide which.

I say, Jesus Christ, buy both! Nobody else is ever going to wear those shoes like you do. This is no time to scrimp.

[Sorry but it is an awesome shoe emergency God will understand.]

She buys both.

I go home happy someone got the awesome shoes.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is from fashion apocalypse

babies kill tv

 

Maybe it is just me —

But I have never watched a series television show that did not tank after a baby showed up. Except for maybe the exception of the Helen Hunt romance show which somehow escaped that to survive a little longer after it turned into “we have a baby.” Hmm. But overall? Once a baby shows up, a TV show’s days are totally numbered. This dates all the way back to Murphy Brown. [And probably before but that is how long I have been paying attention.] Murphy Brown was barreling along, a real hot show. Then Murphy turned out to be an alcoholic who had to quit drinking [bummer, Murphy] and then — she had a baby.

Boom. Dead man walking.

I have a theory about how this all goes down. You have a bunch of struggling writers. They work and work, they are edgy, they are hungry, they work too hard, they drink too hard, they can’t get married OR have babies, they are broke struggling writer types. And then they pull off the big gold ring: They are a team on a hit show. Yay!

Flash forward a few years.

What do people who are fat and happy do the second they have a secure future they were never sure they would have? They marry the girl, they buy the house, they have —

The. Baby.

[I am talking about guys here too, not girls. The majority of TV show writers are guys and this is just how it goes down with them.]

Writers write what they know. A few years into the show they all have babies. Now that is what is on their minds. They are not thinking fun show stuff any more. They are thinking —

The wife stuff. The house stuff. The marriage stuff. The baby stuff. And, for a few of them? The quit drinking and partying stuff.

That is when the show dies. When the show team loses its edge. When the show writers are all fat, happy, married, not drinking, having babies — and writing about those damn babies.

That is my theory anyway.

 

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Note to the Supernatural team: WTF? Marriage and Babies? Seriously? Is Bobby going to join AA next?

I give you one more season.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is salad bowl a by tennborn

dress up day

 

So in the way —

Fashion things work, I used to be about a size zero and now none of those clothes fit and one of my best girlfriends used to be a size two and now none of those clothes fit — we both sized up, me to a two because I wanted to stop passing out in public and she to a four because she became a body builder, and we both sold off a lot of the fancy clothes but some of them we had to hang on to out of love and then these ceremonies hit and I was all, Oh nos! What will I wear? Since all my glam awards clothes are like, size zero. Ahhh! And my girlfriend was on task she was all, Hey I am sending you twos right now!

So today this box arrives. I thought she was sending a couple dresses. No. This box was like five million dresses! [Okay, that is hyperbole but I get to do that because I am in the arts.] But seriously, this was not one or two dresses. This was DRESSES! Like, fifteen dresses!

Holy cow.

I am used to dressing this frame that is all straight up and down Twiggy and have not quite adjusted to the whole hips and breasts thing but my girlfriend has always had this crazy Marilyn Monroe figure so all her clothes are cut for breasts and hips. Whoa. These clothes are totally cut to show off a figure. This is a totally new concept to me.

So I spent the afternoon trying on dresses. Yay!

Love you Stil.

 

where the art work comes from :
that is richard avedon