Penguin August 1st, 2008
I got the idea for the project a few weeks ago while I was working on Irreplaceably Precious. I was talking to Steph about the coming year and what we’d be doing. Initially, I had no idea, but I pulled something out of thin air and came up with… Ninja vs Penguin. Original, right?
After coming back from Kyrgyzstan, I decided to shelve IP for several reasons. I still didn’t have a proper 3rd act. Although there are parts of it I’m interested in, fundamentally, it’s not my story. And it’s not nearly as fun, interesting, or exciting as Ninja vs Penguin.
I had started some work before going to Kyrgyzstan, but I wanted to be serious about it. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve been boning up on story structure and been doing some writing at the library.
Yesterday, I realized that there was this 1984 slant going on. I hadn’t read the book, so I dove deeper into the many pages of Wiki. I got the audio book and watched the film from 1984.
Ninja vs Penguin won’t nearly be as dark as 1984. It’s going to be cute, light-hearted, action packed, comedy.
I’m still deciding whether I want to do it as a web-series or just do a full fledged screenplay. As much as I want to shoot it and get it out there, I rather choose the format that’s best for the story.
-Penguin
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Tags: 1984, Irreplaceably Precious, Ninja vs Penguin, Projects
Penguin June 24th, 2008
It looks like Red String Theory has been put on hold. The director didn’t bother to tell me that she would be in NYC during our two shooting days. Since I’m ramping up to do Irreplaceably Precious in August, this small window is all we had.
I was looking forward to doing RST too. Maybe it’ll still happen sometime this fall. We’ll see what happens.
-Penguin
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Tags: Hold, Irreplaceably Precious, Production, Red String Theory
Penguin June 23rd, 2008
Nothing quite like a vacation to get the juices going. I hammered out a few early drafts of Irreplaceably Precious while I was in Mexico. The ending still needs a little bit of work, but the main bits are there.
I started with a rough short story that I wrote on the plane. After I typed it up, I started building the scenes and writing out the dialogue. It was hard to keep myself from editing, since my dialogue was so bad.
Then I reread it to see if things made sense and added a few more scenes in and started moving bits and pieces around. If I had my index cards, it would’ve been much easier to do this.
I showed it to my actors, and they seem to like it. It clocks in at a brisk 22 pages. The original play, which it’s loosely based off, ran 70 pages. It’s pretty much completely different from the original. But the same (if that makes any sense).
Can’t wait to shoot it.
-Penguin
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Tags: Dialogue, Drafts, Filmmaking, Irreplaceably Precious, Screenwriting
Penguin June 12th, 2008
A few years ago, some friends wrote a 70 page script that was intended to be performed live. I helped them edit and do rewrites over a course of 3 months. Then we spent another 3 to 4 months preparing it for performance. It never happened.
Coming into this summer, I didn’t really have a project to do. Some of the original actors are still keen on making this thing happen and so do I. It’s been sitting on my brain ever since we canceled the show. Was it the right decision? Should we have pushed through?
I reread the script a few months ago and realized how dated it all sounded. So I’ll be spending the next few weeks rewriting it and refocusing it. Luckily, I still have access to the original writers. I want to keep it as faithful to its original themes and intentions as possible.
But even if I finish, I may not have enough actors to do it. Even if I don’t get to shoot it, writing will be good practice.
One step at a time though.
-Penguin
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Tags: Filmmaking, Irreplaceably Precious, Projects, Screenwriting
