A story writing blog

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

GOOD NEWS AND A GORY VIDEO FOR HALLOWEEN!


One quick update.

It appears our gory horror video called Cleaver has been noticed by the people at www.horrorpalace.com and will be featured there in the coming weeks.

In the meantime it can be viewed here at:

https://www.youtube.com/user/theBeautifulTV

I've also linked the youtube channel to this blog.

Anyway, I am going to try to write my script tonight or at least get through my character descriptions.

Monday, October 29, 2012

A POST FOR SPACE NERDS

This footage was takes from the first EVER time that we were able to get a probe far enough to see Jupiter. By a fluke, NASA scientists realized that just as they were getting ready to chose a target for their Voyager satellite; they stumbled upon the fact that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were all going to converge on an orbit that made it possible to visit all four with comparitively little effort.

This was our first view of the gas giant:

Mrs. Aguilera has the distinction of being one of the first
celebs to pop up when I search "fat celebs" in google images.

and this was our first view of Jupiter, imagine how haunting it must have been to see this MASSIVE planet come out of the darkness for the first time. Swirling with life:

Click to watch it swirl

And with that, here's a re-post of a very old story I wrote about two people contemplating outer space on a walk home from the bar.



EXT. – FRONT OF LOCAL BAR 

We watch as two men leave a bar during the last hours of the night, the two look slightly worn. The two men are in total contrast; Man #1 seems wide eyed and awake, Man #2 looks like he is completely ready for bed and can barley keep his eyes open. As they begin their walk away from the bar they take a moment, an extended hesitation as this is something they clearly do not want to do. They begin their walk through the parking lot.

Man #1
I don’t want to go to work

Man #2
(Slightly more emphatic)
I don’t want to go to work. If we go home right now we can get about 5 hours sleep before we have to be up. You just crash at my place.

Man#1
(Kicks a can on the ground)
Sarah won’t get mad?

Man #2
(Uncaring)
I don’t know

The two men pass the bar and head toward the park

Scene 2
EXT- LOCAL PARK
The two men cut the park on the way home, the mood is still gloomy. Its late they are tired and neither is excited about seeing another work week begin.

Man #1
Are you glad you moved in with Sarah?

Man #2
Well, it’s not like I had a choice, I couldn’t afford to move out on my own and no one else wanted to move in with me.

Man #1
Who did you ask?

Man #2
No one. Sarah would have gotten pissed if I moved out with anyone other than her; she takes that kind of thing to mean that I don’t want to be with her.

Man #1
So than why would you…

As he begins his sentence the sky lights up a shade of purple and both men are startled.

Man #1
Whoa, what?

Man #2
Holy.
They both freeze there for a moment looking upward

Man #2
That had to have been a comet or something

Man #1
Meteorite
Again they fall silent while looking toward the sky, after a few moments they begin to walk again. Neither man can look away from the sky.

Man #1
Jeez

Man #2
That stuffs crazy

Man #1
I know, when I was I kid I was really into that stuff. Space and stars and other planets, I used to just stare at the sky at night.

Man #2
Same. I had friends that knew a lot about it, I remember laying on the grass a lot with them looking at outer space.

Man #1
Yeah.

Man #2
Yeah. We should get home.

Man #1
We SHOULD get home.

Scene 3
EXT – A PARK BENCH OUTSIDE A LOCAL SCHOOL
The two men are sitting on a park bench outside of a school, both men are now fixated on the sky, both men have the curious smile of two children lost in imagination. The shot moves from the in-front view to behind them looking upward and sharing the view of the stars that both men are enjoying.
Man #1 breaks the silence

Man #1
Y’know how you take the stars for granted?

Man #2
(Enthusiastically)
Totally

Both men feel like they reached an epiphany and everything that follows is said with a tremendous sense of both discovery and importance.

Man #1
We never really look at the stars with everything we know. Its like we know all about them scientifically but we never think about that knowledge and look at them at the same time.

Man #2
(Looks at him quizzically)

Man #1
I am going to go into a rant here....just be quiet 'cause it doesn’t work otherwise.
Ok
(Takes a second to compose his thoughts)
I mean...you remember “Light Brite”, that thing where it was this giant light; then you got special black paper and put it over the light so that when you poked the colored pegs through; the light would go into the pegs and they would light up?
(He doesn’t wait for any answer)

Man #1
No one ever, ever got more paper when they ran out so they just reused the old ones. Then when they put the paper with all these little holes on the “Lite Brite”; you would see all these pin pricks of light poke through the paper. That’s kind of like how people look at the stars, like they are just these little pricks of light in the sky. AND NO (he gets confrontational, as though he is defending himself to no one) I AM NOT SAYING that people think the sky has holes in it or anything like that. I am just saying. People don’t really think much about those lights.
Man #1 breaks into a confident smile

Man#1
My point is it’s amazing to think; when you really do think, how impressive that little light is. Just in terms of distance; that thing is hundreds of billions of miles away. That is totally inconceivable to people, all we base distance on is distances we can travel on earth. That’s like walking the whole earth a million times, it’s like we KNOW that’s a lot but we can’t really conceive of what that would be like. If you walked as far as you could toward it…
With that it appears as if Man #2 begins to walk toward the star, climbing upward as though there were and invisible staircase. He keeps walking until he is in space and keeps walking toward his target getting further and further out of distance.
… then when you died; you had a kid that walked as far as HE could toward it; and so on…
This time we see Man #2 in outer space he has made some distance between himself and the earth but is still relatively nowhere, he is an old man now. When he collapses and dies, a man looking relatively similar to Man #2 begins his quest; taking up where his father left off. Through a series of dissolves indicating the passage of time we go through many generations.
… it would take a million generations of you to even get close…
In space now we see a man wearing futuristic clothing indicating that hundreds of years have passed, when the camera pulls out we see that he is still a long ways off from reaching that star.

Reality snaps back, the focus is back on the bench.
Man #1
IT LOOKS LIKE ITS RIGHT THERE. Even the moon is so far away; like... (Makes a gesture, a hand wave saying "forget about it"). Plus since light takes so long to travel to earth; what we are looking at is all in the past. This is ALL one big rerun and in reality the sky up there looks nothing like this.
We step out of reality again as when Man #1 reaches to the sky he grips stars and moves them all over the sky to make his point, occasionally tossing a few away.
…some stars are gone over here some new ones are over there, it’s something else entirely AND we won’t even know for another hundred years or so…
Back to reality

Man #1
What’s really crazy is how BIG that little thing is, those stars are way bigger than the sun. If we were to drift close to one, ignoring the fact we'd all be fried; as soon as we got within a million miles one star would fill up out whole sky and then some. It’s like comparing the size of a rock to a lake, it’s so messed.
A black hole floats into view
One black hole or one star explosion happens a long way ways and we are toast; there really is NOTHING we could do. There would never be any record of any human existence ever.
The world is quickly sucked into oblivion; we are left in complete blackness.

Man #2
(Through the blackness)
Do you believe in aliens?
Back to reality

Man#1
Don’t know

Man #2
(Far too serious)
I am just saying that a lot of people think that we are being documented by other creatures.
(Looks hard at Man #1 and nods)
So at least if they were; than some one would know about us. I was watching this show the other day where they mentioned that there is a facility that sends out radio frequency signals throughout space and try and get one back from some other life form. One day they got one back…

Man #1
(Sits up)
Shit!

Man #2
Yeah.
(Another deep serious stare, head nodding)
It was a signal for about 3 minutes, after they confirmed it wasn’t their own bouncing off some asteroid and started trying to find it, the signal stopped. That was in nineteen-seventy… something. It’s the only success they ever had but the government STILL has them in business, that PROVES that the signal was real.
They both seem shocked, and maybe a little frightened. They look back toward the sky, this time as though they had suddenly become aware of some horrible truth.

Man #2
On the show they said that it’s most likely that they aren’t aliens but travelers from the future. But if you think about that, of all times that they could be visiting why now? Nothing has really happened in our time. If you think about it they have to know that something big is going to happen soon.
Hey honestly, if I had to guess I would say that they know that some huge catastrophe is coming that they have to stop.

With that both men stand up and walk, they head across the street neither one looking away from the sky. They navigate the lawn avoiding lawn ornaments, trees and gardens without ever looking down. When they get to the front porch they open the door, take one last look and head inside.


Thursday, October 25, 2012

THE TIME I CAUGHT THE NORWALK VIRUS WHILE TESTING PLAYSTATIONS

So I've decided to tie the new idea I am writing into a previous one I wrote called the Beautiful.


I want to use the same two main character and the big guy who shoots the undercover cop. I am not even going to reference back to the show but this gives me some character points to write from. I have the cop character sort of worked out in my head but I am still chewing on ideas for the rest of the inmates/house arrested, so I have nothing to add. I hate it when I don't have a script page to add; I consider it a failure. Writing scripts for me couldn't be more organic, I literally just write out the things I've been daydreaming about; a chimp could write the way I do. I try to come up with an idea and characters that are fun to daydream about and go, that process isn't working right now and I think it's because I am forcing it. So I am going to relax and let it come when it comes, should be soon.


Just so I actually do have something halfway amusing to add to this site I'll share with you a very short story about the worst day I ever worked that should have been the best day I ever worked.

THE TIME I CAUGHT THE NORWALK VIRUS WHILE TESTING PLAYSTATIONS

This was a long time ago and I was working for a department store called Liquidation World in Ajax, Ontario. Liquidation World was a store that got all sorts of liquidated items from all over Canada and sold them at a discount, usually food, furniture, paint, toys, candles, glassware, everything. Electronics came in from time to time and it was always a big deal, especially one particular day when we were due to get a shipment of playstations and playstation games. This was back when the first PS was still new and expensive, we just took on a whole inventory of returned systems and it was MY JOB THAT DAY TO PLAY THE PLAYSTATIONS, PLAY ALL THE GAMES AND MAKE SURE THEY WORKED. That ALL deserved to be in caps so do even question me on that. God's funny. Right as I was setting up the systems in the break room I felt myself getting more and more dizzy, I felt like there was something badly wrong with my stomach. It felt like I ate a baseball, I got sicker and sicker as I sat down and turned on the first game. It was Tekken, I loved Tekken and it worked perfectly. What I had was the Norwalk virus, a NASTY little bugger of a flu bug that made a man vomit uncontrollably. I don't remember how long I was able to stick around and play those video games because all I do remember is spending about an hour in the bathroom throwing up before someone called my dad to come pick me up. We drove right to the hospital and I threw up in the waiting room and left after being there for over an hour. I spent the next eight hours throwing up every 20 minutes, I would even be woken up from a deep sleep with the jarring instinct to run to the toilet. When I returned to work four days later it was my job to help unload a hot, dirty furniture truck. Thomas Holler.




Wednesday, October 24, 2012

HOUSE ARRESTED SCRIPT - ROUGH LOGLINE



So this is my initial idea for the next script I am going to write, this is meant to be the basis for a few internet short comedies. I wanted to come up with something that's SUPER basic in terms of filming but is able to both justify the feel of small production values and provide an idea that can be mined for lots and lots of comedy. This will be shot with a webcam and a stationary cam set up that will be filmed like security cam footage, that means it's easy to shoot and easy to edit.


The House Arrested
The House Arrested is a comedy about a group of outcast, low level criminals who live in a shared residence under the supervision of Police Constable Benjamin Carp. The show is presented through  webcam video reports to his bosses about the day's events, cut with the house's security camera footage.

Day 1: When a democratic voting process is adopted for day to day house decisions each inmate tries to gain power by forming secret alliances and making back room deals. Only they're AWFUL at it. Constantly confusing which deals and alliances they've agreed to, the housemates have to resort to a contentious sit down discussion to work it all out.



I spelled contentious right on my first try BTW.


Sunday, October 21, 2012

BACK TOMORROW!



Back tomorrow, that pitch package was a lot of work and left me creatively fried, plus with the day job...bah. Anyway, back tomorrow with a low concept idea to start working on called House Arrested.

It's meant for the internet and it's essentially one officer's daily video/web cam report about the happenings of the home detention unit he's assigned to. So it's a cop talking about all the things that happen in a house full of criminals who are confined to house arrest. A group of outsiders all locked in together, boredom will make a person do crazy things. House Arrested.

I got the idea while watching Big Brother one day.

This was easily the best picture I could find associated with house arrest.


Monday, October 15, 2012

DOPE - Pitch Package

APE




So I just finished my whole pitch package for DOPE (Department of Paranormal Events) and I am too paranoid to put it on the net like I planned so...too bad.

Also I broke my phone and I feel like CRAP over it. A mug fell out of my cupboard and landed right on my phone, it was traumatic and I am still  not over it. When I saw the cracks in the glass on my phone I almost cried, that's $110 that I can't afford; down the drain. CLASSIC Thomas Holler.







Sunday, October 14, 2012

THAT TIME SPIDERMAN ATE SOMEONE'S FACE

I am writing a pitch package for DOPE, this show idea I had. It's good, I think it's accessible and should sell if I can get it to the right people. I have no idea who the right people are though, or how to get a hold of them. I just want to have the pitch package all finished, its just nice to have something finished that you can actually start sending out and gauging interest in.

Anyway, my pitch package should be done in a day or two but in the meantime lets talk about the most MESSED up Spider-man story ever told.


It was called 'Spider Man: the Other' and I'll skip right to the ending for you. Spider-man gets beat up by a Vampire guy named Morlun, Morlun tears out Spider-man's eye and eats it.

You sick bastard.
Spider-man's beating lands him in the hospital where he's on his death bed being watched over by Mary Jane but Morlun sneaks in and breaks Mary Jane's arm who was the only one protecting Peter's unconscious body in a hospital that was being patrolled by groups of Super Heroes who swore to protect him. This snaps Pete out of his coma and causes him to fly into an animalistic rage where the sheer trauma and emotion of the situation causes him to pop stinger claws out of his arms and grow a more insecty kind of face.



Then Spider-man (high on bath salts) eats Morlun's face.


Do you know how awful that picture was to find? Do you know what kind of image results you get when you type Spider-man EATS FACE into google?

Anyway after Spider-man's measured response the the eyeball eating attack Morlun dies and so does Pete. We assume. Then we see his hollowed out body in the morgue and see that something escaped out the window. It's revealed in the next issue that Spider-man disgustingly shed his skin and went and hid inside a cocoon of his own making until he was all healed up again. Brand new eye and all, just like all Spiders can do.

Now...how does that story make it past editing? At the end of the day if  you're Marvel you know that these changes to the character can't stick then what's the point in introducing them to begin with? Also why would you make Spider-man eat someone's face? These are valid questions.



Sunday, October 7, 2012

CHECK OUT THIS STORY PREMISE



DOPE is a show that I came up with and like to write episodes for. Imagine Ghostbusters except it's all government controlled. The Department of Paranormal Events (DOPE) is a low level branch of the government where the three protagonists work.

Anyway check out this one episode premise because I am proud of it:

Rooney, Ervin and Randall are chased into a small cabin by a pack of vampires and Randall has been bitten. They can hold up until sunset when the vampires would retreat but if they do that then Randall would die and become one of them. He needs the vampire virus cure which is in the standard DOPE medical kit in their car and he needs it ASAP.

Rooney and Randall risk certain death at the hands of a ravenous pack of wild vampires. Electing to save their friend Ervin constructs a plan to draw the attention of the vampires from within the cabin allowing Rooney to escape out back. Rooney has to race through a kilometer of vampire territory at night to find their car and get it back to Ervin who was left to fortify and protect the cabin from a pack of strong and frenzied vampires who are determined to tear their way inside where Randall lays helpless and dying on the floor; bound to turn into a deadly vampire himself at any minute.



MY RECURRING DAYDREAM - 3

The conclusion to my little superhero story.


The three men run, they flee the house and run into a shed out back and frantically board up the door. The leader of the group is named Aaron, he's slightly older than the other two. They have a shotgun held by SCUMBAG and two big knives held by Aaron and the 3rd man. DIRTBAG.

AARON
Save those bullets. Do you understand me, they're our only chance. You don't pull that trigger unless you have it aimed a foot away from it's head.

DIRTBAG
We need to run before he gets up.

AARON
He'll catch us.

A primal roar is heard, it's a violent and guttural sound. Wholly inhuman. They're terrified.

SCUMBAG
WE HAVE TO RUN!

AARON
He'll CATCH US.

DIRTBAG
Shut up! 

The men get quiet, they can hear the sounds of the monster smashing up the house room by room. It sounds angry.

They hear it getting closer and closer, it's outside the door. They can hear it stalking around the small shed, they can see it's shadow as it passes past the cracks in the walls where the lights from the house shine down on the dark shed. They can hear it's primal snorts of air up against the walls of the shed, a guttural rumbling in it's gut. Aaron turns to SCUMBAG who is shaking with the shotgun in his hands.
 
AARON
Don't miss.

The back wall explodes apart, it smashes through with ease, Aaron charges it with his knife held above is head, the knife comes down in the creature's neck. I has no effect, it grabs his arm and obliterates it. Aaron twist around and screams, he's facing the two horrified men. Blood gushes from his arm. The beast grabs his head from behind and pulls down on it like a pez dispenser, it snaps right off and rolls on the ground. The beast steps inside.

It's the man in the tattered mask, the area's where his skin is exposed looks grey and pale, dead. He's something between a zombie and a vampire, his eyes are yellow and expressionless. His movements are animalistic.

Scumbag screams, Dirtbag runs. Scumbag pulls his gun and shoots, nothing stops it. Scumbag is pounced upon and torn apart.

Dirtbag is running as hard as he can, the beast can be heard closing in behind him. Dirtbag screams, Cockroach runs alongside him and strikes him down. Dirtbag goes rolling along the hard pavement of the road, his knife skipping alongside him, sparking as it clashes with the road.

Dirtbag is hurt, he reaches for the knife but the beast that was Cockroach picks it up. Dirtbag tries to scamper away but he's stomped on. The beast bares down on him and holds the knife up, intending to strike down on Dirtbag's head with the large knife.

As Dirtbag winces the beast halts, there's the first glimmer of cognitive thought to his movements. He shakes his head, like someone trying to shake out the cobwebs and regain sobriety. His pale yellow eye behind the tattered black mask give way to his human blue eyes.

He's back. Cockroach is back and the beast is gone. He looks up to see himself holding a knife, he looks down to see Dirtbag cowering.
 
COCKROACH
Did you kill a blonde girl?

DIRTBAG
I am SORRY!

COCKROACH
I don't believe you.

'THUNK'. The sound of Dirtbag's head being split open with a knife.



-END-


Oh wow. That was violent. HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

I HAVE A RECURRING DAYDREAM - 2

I am continuing this story, check out my last entry if you're interested in catching up.

----------------------------------------

Cont'd


The man takes a moment, the room is quiet and very dark. He gets up off the floor onto his knees, he turns towards the door and stops. Staring back at him is the barrel end of a dirty shotgun, it's held by a scumbag in a white t-shirt with blood stains all over it. Her blood. He speaks.

"You're in big trouble."




The scumbag pulls the trigger, the bullet goes through the man's mouth and explodes out the back of his head. He slumps backwards, his eyes seem impossibly focused and locked on his killer's as he falls backwards. The scumbag is startled, he runs out to the backyard where 2 other men are loading up their truck with stolen items, one of them is trying to wash the blood off of his face. Beside him is a large knife.

SCUMBAG 1
There's someone here

The men drop what they're doing in a panic and rush to their weapons. There's confusion.

SCUMBAG 1
He's inside with the girl, I don't know who he was. I shot him in the head, he's dead.

The night is dark, the house is almost pitch black. One can barely make out the figures as they cautiously stalk the house towards the room where the mysterious stranger had been murdered. The soft light of the room with the two bodies illuminates the group as they inch closer, they see the body of the girl first and don't even react. Towards the far wall they see the slumped body of someone else, dressed all in black.

His upright feet obscure their viewpoint, they move closer...there's movement. They all ready their weapons and step forward, the scumbag with the shotgun is forced to take point. As he gets closer he see's clearly that the man on the floor is breathing, he's breathing very fast. There's a growling sound, something primal and inhuman. He spasms, his growling gets ferocious. He's waking up.

The two man in back's faces have gone white. They recognize the mask, they know exactly who this is. They are in BIG trouble.
"IT'S COCKROACH, RUN!!!!!!!"

To be concluded.


-APE-







Monday, October 1, 2012

I HAVE A RECURRING DAYDREAM

I have recurring daydreams. I find myself daydreaming all the time, I have several favorites that I like to visit and I decided to try to bring one of those characters to the surface. I've always liked the idea of a brutal killer, a tortured wreck and a punisher who has an unbelievable affection towards victims. He's not a good person but he connects at times with the scared and hopeless who have no one protecting them from bullies. He hates bullies, he bullies them and as far as he's concerned he's the only one allowed to be a bully because he's the best at it anyway. I don't want to blurt out too much about him, I am just going to try writing him. Just force him out of my head on onto this blog. Here's Cockroach. He'll look cooler if someone who can actually draw took a crack at him. Anyone? It would really help me out.



A man in a torn up and tattered black ski mask is lying on the floor staring into the eyes of a woman who is in the last moments of her life. She's trying to speak, she looks sad and is trying to speak her last words. The man speaks.

"Do you know who I am?"

The woman nods her head in recognition.

"Then you know you don't have to worry about those men anymore."

The women tries to move and lets out a whimper.

"Don't try to move, it just makes it worse."

Tears trickle down her face.

"Don't be scared. I've been where you are hundred times. Don't be scared of dying.
Does it hurt?"

She whimpers yes.

"That goes away soon. I want you to close your eyes"

She whimpers no, she's scared and her eyes are getting glassy.

"I am sorry I didn't get here sooner. Sometimes bad things have to happen first for me to find the bad guys"

She's fading, she smiles.

"It doesn't hurt now does it? Good Sweety. You'll like this part, everything slows down now, you can step outside yourself. It feels like the first time you've ever really been conscious. You're seeing the people you love aren't you? "

 She smiles, she cries.

"Keep thinking about them, let that feeling of calm come over you. That's always my favorite part"

She starts to finally fade.

"I promise I'll torture those men for you"

She smiles. She dies.



CONT'D