One of my absolute favorite actresses is Lucille Ball, not only because of "I Love Lucy" but because she was such an amazing standout actress before and after this show. She did a radio program called "My Favorite Husband", which was the basis and precursor to "I love Lucy". It is from this that I have gleaned some of my favorite quotes. She also--as producer--got a little bit of say what each episode was about, and I can't help thinking that some of Lucille Ball herself crept into her characters. Here for your reading pleasure is one of my juiciest tidbits, from an episode of "My Favorite Husband". I give you: things men say and what it means(and yes most of it is 50s humor but whatever I love it anyway)!
1. "I'm still behind bars."
Translation: "I'm still employed"
2. "I still beat my wife three times a day."
Translation: "I love my wife."
3. "I look about the same as when we were in high school"
Translation: "I hope your paunch is bigger than mine."
4. In addition, this quote is on my wall at home and makes me smile. It's true Lucy and true-to-life. No joke!
"There are three types of men in the world. Husbands, Fiances and Go Get Him Girls. The Bachelor walks around the car and opens the door for you. The Fiance reaches across you and opens the door from the inside, and the Husband gets out, stands on the sidewalk and says 'Well, we haven't got all night'!"
JUST A NOTE TO SAY THAT I'M STILL HERE! BACK AT SCHOOL AND HARD AT WORK ON THREE DIFFERENT SCRIPTS, PLUS THREE DIRECTING PROJECTS. KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN FOR "ALLEY CATS" AND "SPIDER'S WEB", AND ANOTHER THAT STILL ISN'T MUCH BUT WILL BE POSTED WHEN IT'S...LESS OF A MESS. YEA FOR SCHOOL AND FALL!!!!!!
So, as of...now, I have an entire shelf of DVDs that are from 1933-1950, roughly, and yes with one exception(Quo Vadis 1950, starring Robert Taylor, Debroah Kerr and Leo Genn) are in black and white. As a kid, I never really like black and white movies. They were boring to me simply because I couldn't see any color, and that to me was a BAD THING.
Not so now. Silver Screen Hollywood has become another one of my obsessions, not just because there were a lot of really attractive people involved(see my earlier posts on Cagney, Leo Gorcey, etc.), but because, well, there's a lot, so how bout I make a list? Here goes:
1. Focus on STORY not SPECIAL EFFECTS. Not to put down modern Hollywood or anything, but a lot of the movies I've seen recently have a macho amount of special effects. This isn't bad, necessarily, because they're cool to look at. But it seems like a lot of new Hollywood directors seem to go over the top with special effects and pay no attention to the story(opinion: it is that kind of thing that ruined the movie Eragon--and only one of the many reasons..but that's for another post). The story is lost and the characters are flat and uninteresting--unless they're really attractive, but that only makes the movie about 10% more enjoyable than it actually is, in my opinion.
Silver Screen Hollywood had almost no access to special effects. The most advanced thing they had was what I call "the disappearing effect" where they could make characters playing ghosts or something appear and disappear. Another "special effect" was used for comedy purposes, such as see how many people you could fit in a phone booth(see clip below.) So in order to get audience attention, the stories had to be REALLY good, something that almost anybody in the audience can identify with. The themes were universal, and not a complicated mess.
2. Simple storylines, tight plot, under deadline. Today, movies can be made whenever, wherever and can take however long they need to take(as long as they do whatever possible to stay within budget. or whatever). Not so in Silver Hollywood. Universal and Monogram Studios, who were famous for thier "B" flicks, cranked out several many movies a year, shooting a single movie in 6-14 days. DAYS. Warner Brothers was almost as busy. Because they were working under deadline, or budget, depending on the studio, writers were given tight deadlines, and so had to keep stories simple. Yes, this had a couple of drawbacks, such as plots with rough edges, which occurred in the East Side Kids and Bowery Boys films, but you know what? Bowery Boys has the longest running series spot in history. This is largely due to the simple storylines the series adapted.
Other films kept the same thing as far a plot goes: they kept it fairly simple. Winchester '73 is about a gun, and the two men who want it. Mayor of Hell is about a reform school and the ex-con who changes it. Fighting 69th about a cocky guy who grows up after joining the Army in World War II. Strike Up the Band about a high school band. Simple see? No frills, no big explosions that last fifteen minutes just cause it's cool(and yes, I have seen one of those. Bleg!) And because the plot is simple, it's so tight.
3. Strong Characters. Because Hollywood was in it's "Golden Age" the characters in these movies would be considered stereotypical if/when done today. This is because these types have been done over and over with very little originality. The difference between now and Silver Screen Hollywood is that these characters had clear motivations, strong relationships with each character, and even the villains of the pieces were easy to identify with. There was a definite protagonist, a definite antagonist and a definite conflict. Take 1942's Vivacious Lady, starring James Stewart and Ginger Rodgers. Protagonist: James Stewart, in love with a nightclub singer(Ginger Rodgers). Antagonist: James Stewart's father, who is highly conservative and not that easy to talk to. Conflict: James Stewart has to tell Dad he's married to Ginger Rodgers. Two other movies--The Fighting Irish and The Torrid Zone both starring James Cagney and Pat O'Brian, revolves around the two aforementioned actors butting heads either over a girl(Fighting Irish) or a banana plantaion and the pesky outlaw who is trying to destroy it (Torid Zone). Simple, simple. Easy, easy, easy. Strong, strong, STRONG!!! See, see, see?
4. Very Little Visible Ego. Frankie Darro. Bobby Jordan. Leo Gorcey. Alan Ladd. Kay Francis. Pamela Blake. Richard Benedict. Buddy Gorman. Huntz Hall. Gabriel Dell. David Gorcey. Frankie Burke. Hally Chester. James Stewart. John Garfeild. Edward G. Robinson. Micky Rooney. Marie Wilson. May Robson. Ann Sheridan. Pat O'Brian. Allen Jenkins. Humphrey Bogart. Lauren Becall. James Cagney. Stanley Clements. I'll bet you anything you've only heard of a couple of these actors, and not just because you've been reading my blog. What all of these brilliant people had in common was that they were all talented, yes. But they never slapped their ego all over the screen. Yes, I am in the theatre world, so I know that people have egos(hello? it's human!). But for whatever reason, I never saw or heard from anyone that any of these people were egomaniacs. Yes, I know that several of them also had highly publicized negative moments in their lives, for whatever reason, but they never showed it on the screen. I've heard of very few diva moments, from the above listed especially. They all had talent. They all worked hard. And some of them were still highly unappreciated. Note the bloopers:
...All right, so maybe four isn't a lot. But it's pretty dang good when you know how many movies were actually produced in a single year in Silver Screen Hollywood(I figured it out once, but can't remember the overall number off the top of my head--other than Monogram, and I already told you that in #2 above.) Anyway, the post of this whole post was to explain to anybody who's listening why I have so many movies and black and white. And why I get so upset when a remake backfires.
One of my favorite authors, Lauren Willig, posted on her blog about the stages she goes through when writing. She inspired me to do the same, so here goes. There are ten specific stage I go through each time I write. This doesn't mean there are only ten, there's always the little mini steps one has to get to move on, like taking writing breaks, and buying paper and pens and printers ink. And eating. And maintaining Real Life. but when I'm not doing that, my process runs as follows:
1. Singles- the earliest of my writing stages happens out of the blue when a specific character, image, or quote starts bouncing around in my head and won't go away. There's no plot here, necessarily, just this single--whateveritis. Yes, I just made up a new word. My latest work "Taking the Wrap" was inspired by the faces of both Leo Gorcey and Gabriel Dell going around and around in my head(for more deets check this out). Then I heard their voices and then, while I was watching one of their movies, the following quote stayed inside my head wouldn't budge:
"I'm afraid the gangster days are coming back. But this time they're younger, smarter, tougher."
-Charles R. Marion Angels in Disguise
2. Characters talk- and talk and talk and talk. Not necessarily about anything that has to do with the current piece I'm writing, or their life story, really. Just about--stuff. And they don't talk to me. They talk to each other and let me eavesdrop. For days. By the time they finally get around to talking to me, I have eavesdropped enough to know just about everything I need to about them. My characters Nick and Johnny, for example, had "guys nights" in my head with Ash and Dutch. Creepy, but true.
3. Scenes- now this part doesn't really come in order. I don't really plan much in the beginning of writing a piece because I feel like it's not my story anyway. It's a story that someone-albeit a character that came out of my head--wants to tell me, and is asking me to write down. And, quite frankly, this is like one of those interviews of celebrities you see on TV sometimes, where you want to know specific things, but the answer they give to the question is not exactly what you were going for so you have to ask again? Yeah. It's like that. I knew about one of my characters dying at the end of a particular script long before I even wrote the first scene. And then, when it was time to write it, I wrote the end first, because that's what came out of my head first. And some of them I don't even keep in the final draft!
4. Note Cards-The. Bane. Of. My. Existence. I took a script writing class my second semester of college and we were expected to use them. We had to take a stack and write "Page 3, Page 10, Page 20, Page 30, Page 60, Page 75, Page 90, Page 120" One number on each card. Oh. My. GAG!!!! I will say that this is a great method for some people, and the professor using it was great for using it, but the way I write, it does fly. Every time I'd sit down to work with notecards, my brain would start rebelling. My thought process turn to: I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS ON PAGE 30! AND MY PAGE 75 EVEN HAPPENS ON PAGE 68(caps included)! I can't tell you how much I dislike those 3x5 things. And quite honestly, I ignored this part of the process for the LONGEST time, and then got really confused later on, because I didn't know which direction I was going. With this last one, "Taking the Wrap", which is also posted on this blog, I decided to try note cards. REALLY try them, not just do the textbook thing. I narrowed it down to five events: Beginning, Middle, End, and the two Other Events in between. Then I took my notecards and wrote the event in as much detail as possible. Example: "Beg: Intro to Johnny, Nick, Ash, Dutch, Gyp, Salko, and Mark. Nick threatened by Salko for belting Gyp." See? None of this "Pages" stuff. and you know what? This way, it works! For me, anyway. This is the stage I call my "Rough Draft" stage, because it's messy and awful but has to be done.
5. Writing the Thing-this is the FUN bit. Now that I've been eavesdropping, and scribbling and note card-ing myself half to death, I can actually write. And I do. The whole story, beginning to end. I write because I want to, and I don't listen to what anybody says about my work--not even my inner critics--until I have typed "THE END" on the last page. The only difficulty with this stage, really, is finding time and sticking to it. With "Taking the Wrap" it was easy, because I had a deadline(my brother's birthday), and it was summer(25 hours of work a week leaves a great deal of alone time!). I would settle on my bed, or the couch, or wherever and scribble for a couple of hours. I never get on my laptop until the entire script has been written down on paper first. I do this because if I mess up, all I do is tear the page out and start over. Which usually means that there are times when my 180 page notebook has been reduced to half it's size, but the good news is that once the draft is done(yes, it's a draft. see number 4 above) most of my revisions have been made on paper, and I have the complete story all in one place.
6. First Break- highly recommended. I don't ususally give myself a specific "break time", but what this stage is basically for is an ego boost. I write "THE END" and then take time(couple of days, week or so) to let it sit. That isn't to say I don't read it. I do. A lot. But this type of reading is just for my ego, just to show myself that yes, I can write something like this, and yes, it's good. "Taking the Wrap" is my person record: 116 page script written in 14 days. This includes the early revisions and things.
7. Typing it up- is very much like stage 5. The difference is I'm transferring what I wrote onto a computer(or blog). This is where it gets difficult for a couple of reasons. When you write on paper, the only thing you gotta worry about is the pen running out of ink. So then you go down the street or wherever and buy one, and get back to work. Not so here. You have to worry about your computer working, and not losing your place in the transferring process and planning extra time for writing should the computer blip out and--things like that. I've never been good at transferring anything, so I added another element. This is where the BIG revisions come in. The big scene cuts and dialogue added and cut. This way I can use the "Copy" and "Paste" buttons to my heart's content--and save each draft in a separate doc if I want to.
8. Second Break-same as 6, but this time I email copies to myself and print out one hard copy. Then I sit back a read it to myself again. Multiple times, on the bus, on my phone, in my apartment, on my blog, wherever. I read and enjoy. A lot!
9.Peer Review- sounds like something from grade school, huh? This is the part where I send out a mass email to anybody I think will want to begging them ever so nicely to read it a chop it up to bits. This used to be the longest and worst stage for me because I had to wait for people to get the email, then email me back, then read the script, then email notes back, then re-write again. I used to care so much about all the notes people would give me, but recently I've decided that I really don't care. It helped that I was posting "Taking the Wrap" here on my blog, because I was writing for me. People got opinions. They like, they don't like. They ain't me.(ok, I'm off my soap box now) So instead of the slaughter house, this stage has turned into the "Audience Test". I just want to know if people like it and if there are any glaring problems, I fix em. If they're opinions I let em slide.
10. DONE!!!-pretty self explanatory. I print off the final copy and put it away and move on to the next project. Sometimes I'll glance through it, but not often. I've reached a stopping point, so I let it go. Do I send it to contests? Sometimes. And workshops? (once. BAD IDEA. next time, I'll get one that knows what it's doing). That's the next step is getting it out there. But I haven't quite figured that bit out yet.
EEK!! So, I'm kind of excited today. This day is the day that one of my favorite BBC/ITV actors was born. He has two beautiful daughters, and DJs regularly in the UK. He is also the star of the 1980s cult series "Red Dwarf"(which returns to TV screens in September/October of this year), and a regular cast member of the UK Soap "Coronation Street"(he returned July 2nd!).
He was the winner of a poetry contest when he was twelve(TWELVE!) and the second place winner was 32. Not a joke.
This man has the wonderful ability to always make me feel good. Whenever I'm depressed, or don't want to think, or whatever, I just have to pop one of his DVDs in the player and enjoy myself. Of course, it helps that he's also got clips all over Youtube!
He is also one of those annoying people that age and still look REALLY GOOD. It helps that I find his accent sexy, I guess. And that he had a wicked hairstyle in the 80s(his Lister Locks!).
Yes, he may be old enough to be me dad, but ohmigosh he still looks SEXY GOOD!!!!
Happy 48th Birthday Craig Charles! VIVA LISTER AND LLOYD!!!!!
Craig Charles, then, as Lister, 1988
Craig Charles, as Lloyd, now, 2012--no change with age, yes?
While I know he won't ever read this blog, I still want to wish one of my favorite TV Celebs "Happy Birthday"! Yes, Chuck Bass, aka Ed Westwick, turns 25 today! So I'm going to rave for just a second about how amazing this guy is!
So, first off, this guy was born in England, and he's got the thickest accent I've ever heard. BUT, when he plays his character, he nails the accent(standard American) about 90% of the time. When he does slip up, it's kind of cute. He also has the ability to sweep his scene partner off her feet when doing Blair/Chuck scenes(I would LOVE to get kiss from this guy. Ed Westick knows how to tell stories with his eyes. Even when he's not speaking you just have to look at him to know exactly what he's thinking. He has such an amazing power on the set, and--in my opinion--steals scenes from almost every scene partner he's got. Except Penn Badgely, but that's for another post.
I first saw him in "Gossip Girl", which has been running for 4 seasons, but, silly me, I didn't pick up on it until the finale of season 3(how sad is that?) Any way, I had no idea who any of these people were and had to keep pausing the episode to go on imdb and see who was with who and what and why and...stuff. But I got the gist about halfway through.
So anyway, I fell head over heels in love with Chuck--mostly because he was a "badboy". Brother, I always seem to fall for those types. Question: why? And when he got shot at the end of the episode, I was in shock. This character that I'd known for all of five minutes was dead for all I knew and it wasn't fair!
Imagine my relief when I hopped online and found out that he was not in fact dead and was returning for the next season. So all I had to do was wait until September. Brilliant!
I spent the rest of the summer getting to know as much as possible about "Gossip Girl", so that when the time came I wouldn't be confused. Well, I wasn't, and I still got stars in my eyes whenever Chuck Bass graced the screen.
He's also an amazing actor off of "Gossip Girl." I can't wait to see him as one of my all time favorite Shakespeare bad boys: Tybalt, in "Romeo and Juliet".
This guy is one of the most independent, hard working, amazing, creative, sarcastic, side-splittingly funny people I have ever seen/heard of. Not met him, and probably won't until after I die. Because he's dead. Which sucks. Because he'd be ninety-five otherwise.
His autobio is selling on Amazon for $200--used. There are at least half of his movies available in one way or another via this wonderful thing we have called the internet(and DVDs). He was a member of the Dead End Kids, the leader of the East Side Kids, and the leader of the Bowery Boys. His name is Leo Gorcey
This was a man who didn't want to be an actor in the first place, but became one anyway. He landed his stage debut in 1935, and wanted $50 a performance. When he was told that there were dozens of kids who would love to play this part, he looked at the director and said "Yeah? Then go find one." He got his job.
Leo became really good friends with fellow ESK/DEK Kids Gabriel Dell and Huntz Hall. These three were the head of the prank squad when making the Dead End Kids movies(they threw fire crackers in Bogey's dressing room, and then drove Ann Sheridan's car onto one of those platform things they keep on set, or used to, in the 30s.) In fact, according to one of Gabe Dell's kids, Leo went to see Gabe before he died(I read this in the book "From Broadway to the Bowery", and cried my eyes out).
He stayed in it because people told him he was a terrible actor
and he should stop. He told them in the nicest way possible(and probably
with a great selection of four letter words) to stuff it. He left one studio after this incident and went to another where he starred in 21 movies. And when one studio didn't work anymore, he went to another one. He started his own, and made 41 of those(and co-wrote some of them, apparently. Now I want to know if he had a pseudonym, cause his name is not in the writing credits). That's 62 movies! 62!! And you know what? Call me nuts, but I think they are pretty darn amazing! The story lines are simple, and the comedy is perfectly timed, and the improv is--everywhere! That's another thing I like about him. His brain was constantly on the move. Apparently, he had to be this way with some of his movies, cause the director he was working with liked to do scenes in one take, and get the whole movie done in five days. FIVE! so he had to be thinking on his feet. And you know what? It shows!
(Note: this clip is taken from a movie Leo did when he was 48, ten years after he left acting due to the death of his father. I've heard this described two ways: that Leo and Huntz made this up while the camera was rolling or that somebody wrote this for them to say. I like to think it's the first one, cause they were both unacknowledged geniuses when it came to improv(particularly when it was just the two of them)
Another thing this man did was something that very few actors of the silver screen could do: he could tell stories with his eyes. No matter what situation he was in or who he was with, you could always tell what he was thinking. Even in the Dead End Kids movies, where the focus is on Billy Halop, you don't look at Billy Halop, you look at Leo. Because of his eyes. Don't believe me? Watch these (from the movie "Hell's Kitchen." Leo's character's name is Gyp. I think he got the lead in the following movie because of his performance in this one.):
This guy knew he had faults and acknowledged them publicly, particularly in his auto-biography. He accepted people the way they were, and wanted everybody else to return the favor. He knew what he wanted, and he went after it. He had no ego so far as acting was concerned(he considered himself the worst actor in the East Side Kids--a sentiment I whole-heartedly disagree with), and he was human enough to know when to call it quits(yes, he quit the Bowery Boys, he wasn't fired. He knew he screwed up, and he left before he could cause any more trouble). This is one person that, in spite of his faults, I would really like to meet.
This isn't a quirk of mine, just a thought. And since it's Monday, why not?
As thespians, we want things. Sure, we want everything that any other
human being wants, but we also have dreams of the perfect stage career,
the most hard working cast, the most creative design, the opportunity
to direct your favorite show, or write the next Pulitzer prize play, or
win an Academy Award( be honest, you've had that dream, even
fleetingly). And if you don't get published, or cast, or chosen(or
whatever a designer or director gets when he/she is given the job), it's
not because you're not talented. It's because it's not time yet.
Directors
cast with one thing in mind "Right Place, Right Time, Right Reason."
Each actor is cast because he/she meshes with the picture in the
director's head. Actors are there to audition; they don't necessarily
see the big picture. The director does. They know what they are doing.
As humans, we want things too. We want things NOW, not later, not tomorrow, not next week, RIGHT FREAKING NOW. And when we don't get it, we as humans do one of three things--get ticked off at everyone, and everything, go into depression and wonder what we did wrong, or cowboy up and move on.
I will be the first to admit I very rarely do number three without doing number one or two first. Because it's natural, innit? We feel disappointments because we don't get the job we want, or live in our dream house, with our dream spouse, surrounded by the perfect social life. But life doesn't always work out that way. That's why it's called life.
Things will happen. Good things, bad things, relationships, grades, employments, etc. But not until they are supposed to. And if it doesn't happen, it's not supposed to. Things happen at the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons. Just wait and keep doing what you're doing. If something doesn't happen, move on.
It's always this time of year that my "past movie year" gets it's title. First semester of college, I didn't watch much. But then the library got a completely new building, where media got it's own floor, and--I was gone ^_^. I've been through a Romance Year, Sci-Fi/Fantasy year, and Coming of Age Dramas. Last year was my Television Series year: M*A*S*H, Bewitched, Chuck, House, Supernatural, Gossip Girl, TVD, you name it, I probably watched it. This past year(2011), I went on an "oldie bender". Part of this is because I happen to have Turner Classic Movies on my cable this year. And my current obsessions are Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. And I've always liked Mickey Rooney. So below I have complied a list of what I think are the greatest oldies of all time.
1. The Mayor of Hell
2. The Torrid Zone
3. Angels with Dirty Faces
4. National Velvet
5. The African Queen
6. Casablanca
7. The Fighting 69th
8. Huckleberry Finn staring Mickey Rooney
9. City of Conquest
10. Harvey
11. Arsenic and Old Lace
12. It Happened One Night
13. Philadelphia Story
14. It's a Wonderful Life
15. Horatio Hornblower(1950)
16. Dead End
17.Winchester '73
18. Meet Me in St. Louis
19. The Canterville Ghost(1940)
20. Call Northside 777
21. The Big Sleep
22. The Maltese Falcon
24. Treasure of Sierra Madre
25. Some Like It Hot
26. Ceiling Zero
27. Footlight Parade
28.Johnny Come Lately
29. Rear Window
30. Vertigo
31. Dial M for Murder
32. Arsenic and Old Lace
33. Quo Vadis
34. Frenchman's Creek, staring Joan Fontaine
35. British Agent
36. Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn
37. Robin Hood, starring Richard Todd
38. The Sword and the Rose
39. The Slipper and the Rose
40. The Three Musketeers, starring Oliver Reed, Michael York, Faye Dunaway and Richard Chamberlain
41. The Four Musketeers, starring Oliver Read, Michael York, Faye Dunaway, and Richard Chamberlsin
42. The 39 Steps
43. The Secret Garden
44. What's Up Doc?
45. Bell, Book, and Candle
46. It's a Wonderful Life
47. You Can't Take It With You
48. Ballots or Bullets
49. The Awful Truth
50. The Shop Around the Corner
51. The Human Comedy
52. Johnny Eager
53. Rebel Without a Cause
54. West Side Story
55. My Fair Lady
56. Sabrina, starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden
57. Treasure Island, starring Bobby Driscoll
58. The Woman in Green
59. Sherlock Holmes, starring Basil Rathbone
60. The Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Leslie Howard
61. Only Angels Have Wings
62. Bachelor Mother
63. Sunset Boulovard
64. The Roaring Twenties
65. To Catch a Thief
66. Charade
67. For Whom the Bell Tolls
68. The Magnificent Seven
69. The Ten Commandments
70. Broken Arrow
71. The Stratton Story
72. Highway in the Sky
73. The Defiant Ones
74. The Sweet Smell of Sucess
75. The Big Sleep
76. Here Comes the Navy
77. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
78. Next Time We Love
79. Pot O' Gold
80. White Heat
81. Buck Privates
82. Dracula(1931)
83. Boystown
84. Men of Boystown
85. Footlight Parade
86. Blood on the Sun
87. Yankee Doodle Dandy!
88. Each Dawn I Die
89. G-Men
90. Mutiny on the Bounty(starring Marlon Brando 1960)
91. Great Guy
92. Santa Fe Trail
93. Green Light
94. The Robe
95. The Public Enemy
96. Dark Passage
97. Come Live with Me
98. To Have and to Have Not
99. One Way Passage
100. Made For Each Other
Please note that all the above have either, James Cagney, Tony Curtis, Pat O'Brian, James Stewart, or a combo of these. Media Bender? I think yes!
One of my quirks is I eavesdrop, and then I get thoughts like this:
I was sitting at work today, and I overheard one of my supervisors talking about George Lucas. He mad an interesting comment "when he didn't have a budget he was able to concentrate on what mattered most--the story and the characters. That's what makes it good."
While I have no idea what movie he happened to be talking about, that phrase really stuck. And since I'm still on my Red Dwarf bender--third time through all eight seasons and going for a fourth!--I started thinking about that show. Red Dwarf was filmed in the 80s, on next to no budget(thank you cast commentary and behind the scenes featurettes), and so the writers had to come up with a really tightly written story and awesome characters. Yes, it was a sci-fi sitcom, so if it was written in this day and age, you'd need lots of special effects and stuff. Rob Grant and Doug Naylor didn't have special effects that I could see. They used model shots and make-up and stuff like that. For the most part, they concentrated on making a good entertaining story. They came up with four characters--Lister, Cat, Rimmer, and Kryten--that you never get sick of. Each episode has you entertained and wanting more.
Take the episode Marooned form Season Two. All it is on the out set, is two men snowed inside a crashed spaceship and talking for twenty-ish minutes. But they way they talk also establishes their characters, their relationships and their wants(and conflict, like how they're going to get out of this snowed in mess.) And they never leave the spaceship. So what makes it entertaining? Good flesh and blood characters, and good story.
YA Writer S.E. Hinton does the same thing, but in a different vein. She writes books, but she has the same intent that I think Grant and Naylor had. She wrote The Outsiders because she couldn't find a good book for Young Adults. And then she wrote That Was Then, This is Now, Tex, and Rumble Fish for the same reason. She wanted to entertain her audience by telling a good story, one that people could identify with and want to read over and over again. Each of her characters are flesh and blood, and each of them have real problems that need real solutions.
So, with my own writing, I've tried to follow their example. Real characters, strong story, tight plot. That's what makes any writing good.
Now, I am the type of person that gets easily obsessed. Like, really SCARILY obsessed. And I forget this. A lot. So when I typed "Red Dwarf" into my Kindle Fire a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea what the result would be.
It was really interesting.
See, I got into "Red Dwarf" kind of by accident. I was in a show over the summer and one of my fellow cast members kept saying "smeg" whenever he screwed up. When I asked him what that meant, he gave me a look and said "It's from Red Dwarf." I then got a ten minute crash course one the show--which I didn't understand at all--and from then on sort of got what "smeg" meant. When I moved back to my apartment in August, I was still kind of curious, so I stayed up until 10:30 on a Saturday night just to watch one episode. The episode was called "Backwards", and even though I'd had a crash course on the show, I still didn't entirely get it. My first impression was that it was a sci-fi comedy about a robot, a dead guy, a cat, and a monkey floating around in space(yes, I totally thought Lister was a monkey, which is why part of me REALLY hopes no hardcore RD fan reads this because they might shoot me.)
Flash forward to end of this month(January 2012). I have seen all nine series of RD, put my favorites on my Youtube channel, read every single article I can find, and am currently waiting on pins and needles for the next series (RD X) to air in Sept-Oct of 2012. On a side note, I am working my way though the series for the third time in almost as many weeks. Can you say OBSESSED?! And the next series airs in EIGHT MONTHS AWAY, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?
Good question. Here is my answer: "Coronation Street"
Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not a soap fan. This could be because I was raised on US soaps(which--in my opinion--are REALLY BAD). However, I am a fan of Craig Charles(yes, that guy who plays Lister on RD, and who can blame me, that guy can act! Plus, he's forty-seven and STILL looks pretty good ^_^) Anyhoo, I typed his name into IMDB, because that's what I do when I really like actors and shows and things(I did the same with Chris Barrie, Danny John-Jules, and Robert Lllewellyn), and "Coronation Street" popped up. I looked it up, but didn't really watch any episode until I stumbled across and article that Craig Charles wrote with regard to a particular episode in which he gets into fisticuffs with another character. Now, this is something I wanted to see. I spent the next hour on Youtube trying to find it. When I did, I ended up watching the next four episodes(for anybody familiar with "Corrie", it was the epic tram crash of December 2010) and got hooked. This show isn't like the soaps I'm used to. It's not just drama, and screwed up love affairs and stuff. It's actually heartwarming and funny. There are REAL people in this show, not one-dimensional over dramatized soapsuds(no offense, just my opinion).
And Craig Charles is in it. Playing a totally different character to the one he is in "Red Dwarf." But he's gone for a little so he could film RD 10, so in the meantime, I can catch up on the show til he comes back( 3 more eps of 2011, and then I can start on 2012. I'm only a month behind!). But not only is Craig Charles in this, but there are a lot of other really awesome actors in it. Simon Gregson, for example. I'd never heard of him before, but now I really wish he did more than "Corrie", cause DANG is he really talented.
So, my plan is to continue watching RD(all the episodes available anyway), and "Corrie" on Youtube over the summer. Then, I can still see a good show with a good actor while I wait for my favorite cult series to return. And then I will buy it on DVD, just like I bought the others, so I can own all of the episodes and watch it whenever I want (Red Dwarf, not Coronation Street. That's what Youtube is for.)
Wow. I really need to find a new obsession.
