Friday 28 March 2008

Nearly there but no ending yet...

So I'm 80 pages in, my characters have ended up in Mexico, and I'm not sure what happens now. I've got the last ten pages practically written, and I know what needs to happen plot-wise for them to get there, but it's the details I'm missing. Luckily we've got people staying over this weekend which means I can't do anymore until Sunday so hopefully inspiration will hit before then.

As far as I know Ten Dead Men is very close to being finally, properly finished, but I daren't ask Ross or Phil because I imagine they're both really stressed at the moment with the sales agent deadline being on Monday. I've being trying to get an idea of how things are going by checking out peoples' statuses on Facebook and it all seems to be going okay. We're recording a commentary next week so I should know by then.

On a random note, anyone who's ever read any scriptwriting books or been taught scriptwriting should read John August's post about character motivation here:

http://johnaugust.com/archives/2008/rethinking-motivation

It's nice to see someone with a qualified opinion deconstructing the favourite rules of the writing experts/teachers.

A word on Richard Widmark who died the other day. He was always one of my favourite actors of his generation, mainly because of his amazing performance in Kiss of Death as one of the best screen bad guys of all time, but I liked a lot of his other films too. Warlock, The Long Ships, The Last Wagon and Night and the City are the ones that I remember, and I always liked True Colors, the last film he was in. But looking at his imdb credits made me realise how many films he's been in that I haven't seen so I've added a few to my lovefilm list, including Pickup on South Street which being a Sam Fuller fan I should really have seen anyway. So while I can call myself a fan I can't really say I'm an expert, but I will say this - if you come across a film starring Richard Widmark it will always be worth a watch.

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