Always Ready to Learn: The Avengers

      So, one thing I've come to learn from all the research I've done and researching the creative people whose work I admire, is that you should always be willing to learn. No one's ever perfect, and no one's ever achieved all the knowledge in skill in the universe, the best master, is still a willing student, always ready to learn. So I figured I'd briefly catalog some stuff I've learned from my research or consumption of media, in this specific case: The Avengers.

      Now me and Mr. Joss Whedon don't really agree on much politically.... or probably socially.... definitely not religiously. But of the two major film releases he's made thus far (besides Much Ado About Nothing, which I haven't seen yet) I can re-watch both of them almost endlessly without tiring, and they both can make me giggle like a school girl with glee. Both Serenity and Avengers do such a great job of both telling their own story while also paying off stories started elsewhere. Both also weave multiple character arcs all at once into a coherent narrative and still are the most fun you'll have in awhile. One thing specifically I've noticed about Mr. Whedon and his works (I haven't yet seen the majority of his work in television) is his brilliant subversion of the audiences expectations and his management of tension.
     I've always thought of tension as a bow and arrow. As you build tension, it's like an archer stringing the arrow and pulling back slowly. If you release the tension properly, it's like an archer letting the arrow go and hitting his target. That's satisfying because that's what you're anticipating. If you deflate it too slowly with too little fanfare, it's kinda like the archer dropping the arrow, then slowly easing the string back in place before simply picking the arrow up, meandering over to the target and then sticking it in the bulls eye by hand. Which you weren't really anticipating that and it's also kinda in the exact opposite vein of what you wanted to see achieved.
  What Whedon does so well, is get the audience excited for one thing, and then giving them something not only unexpected, but also a little better and that feels true to what you wanted to see. Take lessons, for example from the Hulk/Loki..... "confrontation" from The Avengers. It ratchets up the tension and then pays it off beautifully.
     We start with Black Widow, on a alien space chariot, being chased by Loki, also on a hover space chariot, and calling to Hawkeye for help. Hawkeye, an archer who has a serious grudge with Loki, aims an arrow and lets it fly right. towards. his. face. EXCEPT OH SNAP Loki catches the arrow without missing a beat. He shoots Hawkeye an amused glance as if to say, "Are you kidding me?" EXCEPT OH EVEN MORE SNAPPIER THE ARROW EXPLODES IN HIS FACE. Loki is knocked clear of his hover-chariot doohickey and tumbles onto the balcony for Stark Tower. As he steadies himself, he finds the Incredible Hulk lunging straight at him, knocking both into the interior of the tower. Loki picks himself up again, but before the Hulk can proceed he lets out a commanding shout of "ENOUGH!" Hulk is stunned for a moment as Loki proceeds to lecture him. "You are all of you beneath me, I am a god! and I will NOT be bullied by-" It's at roughly this point that one of the greatest thirty second intervals in film history occurs. Ya see that? it just keeps getting better.
     In my illustration of an archer, what Whedon does here is like the archer pulling back his string, and then being suddenly launched backwards thirty feet in the air, letting go of the arrow, hitting the target anyway, which triggers a net that catches him, then trampolines him into the drivers seat of an awesome convertible.  It just keeps getting better and it plays off the tension established earlier.Of course, just as the archer tries to start the car only to find out the battery is dead, because that's funny, but you get my point.
     Anyway, I really hope to continue learning and also share some of what I've learned with you guys. And I also am really looking forward to Age of Ultron. Though does it have it's work cut out for it OR WHAT?

I mean, it's got to simultaneously got to give Hawkeye a bigger part, and also not kill him off. Because Hawkeye is awesome and needs to be in more stuff.

On Endings, again, and on Captain America: The Winter Soldier

     We have a short post this week because I've been participating in the dress rehearsals for my church's Passion Play this weekend and so most of my time was spent doing that. I do want to mention a couple things, though

     First, a clarification on my previous post, in it I pretty strongly suggested that knowing your ending as soon as possible was key for a story to have a satisfying ending. I have heard it argued that the problem for the finale for How I Met Your Mother (Which I will remind you all is a show that I don't watch but the uproar surrounding it is partially what inspired my post last week) was that the writers planned their ending too far in advance and therefore ignored the developments that occurred later on in the show's run in order to have the ending as originally intended, regardless of what it would do for the character arcs. I would argue, admittedly based more on principle and what little I know of the show as opposed to experience with the series, that their problem was not over preparing their ending, but instead not preparing the audience for said ending properly.
     Regardless, I do want to mention that I admit that my advice was more given to those planning to write fiction of a one and done sort of deal. Ongoing fiction, such as comics or television series, can rarely be properly planned out. You may design a five season plan for your show, only for it to be cancelled halfway into season 3. On the flip side, you might figure that your show would last no more than three or four seasons, and write your stories accordingly, only for the show to take off and run for eight seasons. Predictability, in that case, is out the window, so in a situation like that, endings are a bit tougher to figure. You're on the bubble, do you gamble and go for a jaw dropping cliff-hanger that creates a stunned silence wherever it's seen? or do you wrap up a few  longstanding questions, so that if this is the end, at least there will be some closure to be found? I can't answer that directly, though I usually prefer somewhere in the middle.

Finally, I'll briefly mention that I also took the time to see Captain America: Winter Soldier this weekend. Excellent film for the most part, and thought the titular Winter Soldier was only in a handful of scenes, he did not fall into the trap I've seen far too many other Marvel villains fall into of being disposable, a la Whiplash in Iron Man 2, or Malekith in Thor: The Dark World. The film certainly made a perfect balance of pushing the Marvel universe forward in interesting ways while simultaneously telling a compelling stand-alone story, something I really think more comic book movies should aim for. I still really want to know what Hawkeye's been up to all this time, maybe Marvel will make my idea about him and the Hulk traveling across America and righting various wrongs like the best action shows of the 80's into a movie after all.

On Endings

      One of the first things I thought about when I first writing my screenplay was the very last shot of the film. Before I started my outlines and character sheets, all I had was a theme, a name, a couple characters and an ending ready to go. Why? Because I deeply believe that the ending of a story should probably be its strongest point.
     When you get involved in a work of fiction, and I mean involved somewhere on a scale between I have T-shirts from this thing and I run a website devoted to this thing, you realize that, inevitably, there must be a point when you have to say goodbye. I talked about this last week, but endings can be heard to take, but they don't have to be. They can leave you with such a positive aftertaste that you can't wait to introduce everyone to this epic that you've discovered.
      What makes an ending good, though, is the question that we storytellers have to figure out. I have a few suggestions, but as an amateur, I could be way off base.
       The first suggestion is to make sure your ending is satisfying, in all the right ways. This might seem obvious as the opposite of satisfying is unsatisfying and who wants ANYTHING to be unsatisfying? Well, sometimes writers apparently are tempted to use their ending to deliver one last jolt of unexpected energy, whether it's revealing that it was all a dream, or killing off a major character, or revealing that the real killer was actually the detective's brother. This sort of thing is not inherently bad or anything, but as a reader, I get incredibly frustrated if this sort of thing if it doesn't feel like a natural outcome to what came before it. Take Inception's famous ending, for example, the film ends on a note of uncertainty, you aren't sure if what you are being presented with is real, and I think this works because much of Inception dealt with characters basically toying with the very foundations of perceived reality.
     The second suggestion is that you want your ending to feel like this is what the audience came for in the first place. If your ending is the main character retiring from his job to live in Montana, make sure that as soon as possible, the audience is rooting for this guy to grow a spine and quit his job. If the audience is instead hoping he gets a promotion, they're going to put down your book quite disappointed that the hero failed. I mean, what was the point of that. right?
      Really, the best point of advice I could give is to know your ending and work backwards from there. This isn't a one-size-fits-all sort of advice, admittedly, as my possible favorite novel, The Lord of the Rings, was begun without the ending in mind. Then again, Mr. Tolkien did tinker with his manuscript for years, so maybe after you're done writing your first draft from the seat of your pants, take the ending you came up with, and build towards it in subsequent drafts.
      The ending is important, I think, because is your only opportunity to say goodbye on your terms, and  it's the very last taste of your work that the consumer gets. So, I would argue that for your ending to feel like a proper finale to your story, you have to be ready to build your entire story towards your ending, so it really helps if when you go to make your outlines, and your character sheets, you have, along with maybe a title, a theme, and a couple characters, your ending all ready to go.



*post scripts*

 While my inspiration to write about endings was partially due to the finale of How I Met Your Mother airing this week, I admit that I don't actually watch the show, and didn't watch the finale, so none of this is directed at said finale. I am loosely aware of what transpired on it, though, and I seriously doubt I would have enjoyed it had I ever seen a single episode of the show.

Also, this post has nothing to do with April Fools day. Nothing. Sorry guys, but I just don't care about pulling silly pranks.

Saying goodbye to your favorite series.

     Television series can occasionally start feeling like friends. You see them every week or so, save for their occasional vacations, and you quickly allow some to get closer than others. You might have watched Law & Order when it was on, but only when there was nothing else you cared more about. On the other hand, you never missed an episode of 24, and you followed that series breathlessly through the good times and Season 6.

   This is why it's so hard when a show ends as psych does tomorrow night. Psych is one of those rare shows that I've watched from the very beginning. Seriously, since Day 1. Now, with its eighth and final season coming to  close, I ruminate on the ups and downs of psych, and of the many other shows that I've lost over the years.
       It's hard to say goodbye to a well liked show no matter how it ends, whether cancelled, cut short, or with a proper finale. You still have to say goodbye to a show that you had scheduled as part of your week. psych will be no different. My Wednesdays will still be busy, and I can, in fact, function without a show to every night of the week, but I'll miss Shawn and Gus, and their hectic and comedic adventures. I'll miss the various alternate theme songs that popped up from time to time. I'll miss the occasional Val Kilmer reference. (anyone else annoyed that they never managed to get him on the show? I mean, come on) psych isn't as good as it was for its first three seasons. But it was still a show I thoroughly enjoyed, and I'll be sad to see it gone.

*Updated after the finale. Great ending, and I will not spoil anything, but I am not disappointed or annoyed.

A Critical Response to Critical Hit's Frozen Review

So, there's this youtube channel out there called Critical Hit, they critique movies. Makes sense, right? They caught quite a few people's attention with their first video, an in-depth review of Disney's Frozen, which I'll post below:

(WARNING, this review, and the response to it placed below, contain major spoilers for the film Froze, and Wreck-It Ralph, so it's probably best to watch those before watching this and reading my stuff below... also you should see those because they're both really great movies, but that's besides the point)

So, I watched the above review, which you'll note is quite critical of possibly my favorite film of 2013, and had prepared my self to strongly disagree, but to still better understand the merits of why people wouldn't like this film. (And I will note here that you are totally allowed to not like Frozen, or even to think it's over-rated, this is America, you've got a constitutional right to be wrong... I'm kidding... kinda) What I watched, though, was what I thought to be a bizarre and frustrating collection of complaints, that occasionally had me baffled on exactly they wanted, since most of their critiques seem to be based around a premise of "We didn't really like this film, but if they made the movie in such and such away, we would have liked it."
   
 I have a problem with this because it's basically the same thing as seeing West Side Story and thinking "I don't like musicals too much, except for Blues Brothers, it should have been like Blues Brothers... and also a Sci-Fi action film" You can't take apart a movie and want it to be something it's not and then degrade it for not being the thing you want it to be. That doesn't make sense. I mean, I like to occasionally imagine a different way of making the story of the Star Wars prequels, with different concepts and stuff more inclined to my tastes. But I don't dislike the prequels because they aren't the stories I would write, I (mostly) dislike the Prequels because they're kinda lousy. 
  
  Anyway, Since Frozen comes out on Blu-Ray and DVD today, I decided to take the time to post a bit of an outline where I refute the points made in Critical Hits' video And I want to give credit to these guys before I start bashing their points, they composed this thing very well, made some well structured arguments. Their arguments were WRONG, but they were still very well argued. :)

Brace yourselves folks, this is a long one.

A little late, but here's an update!

     Huh? Say again? 2014? No that can't- Oh, look, it is. Um, so, I never really updated my status pertaining to A Ronin No Longer, did I? (For those not keeping track, I don't blame you, I've been sporadic, to put it mildly, A Ronin No Longer is the name of a script I'm writing)
     Well, I started off November knocking over at least 1,000 words a day for a while, but then, a couple of mishaps happened, First, I went out of town for Thanksgiving, this wasn't a shock or anything, and frankly, I saw it coming, but it still took a bit of a hit on my productivity. That would have been perfectly fine, had I not made a rather major adjustment to the out line of my story. This change was for the best, but it was still a hurdle, as not only did I have to change my story, but it also extended the story by a good chunk.
      So basically November ended, my goal word and page wise, had been met, but I was only two-thirds through the story. Well, December came and was as crazy as ever, I managed, occasionally, to slap some more words onto my work in progress, but I still wasn't done, not until last night, when I finally typed "The End" So, now that I've finished my first draft, I've learned a few things:

      1st: First Drafts suck. I mean, wow, there's some stuff I like, but, what? no... they, just, they just stink. Half of this makes no sense, I suspect the rewrites will be intense

      2nd: Don't screw with your outline or whatever sort of structure you're working with, unless you commit to a couple of days of JUST reworking your outline, having a half-formed idea and throwing down tracks in front of your new direction does not a satisfying conclusion make.

      3rd: Kinda related to the second point, but I found working from a birds eye view, then coming down and connecting the dots, much easier than what I was doing for a while in the middle there, which was connecting dots I hadn't quite figured out yet.

 All in all, it was a very educational experience, I think I'll take some time off from working on the script, play some games, watch some movies, and read some books, basically separate myself from the story, and get an idea of what a finished product looks like, before coming back for the rewrites with the clear goal of making the story at least half way decent.

You're welcome

I remain busy and writing the first draft of A Ronin No Longer continues to be a both an uphill battle and a great learning experience, but that doesn't matter, because here's a tweeted pic of a hedgehog trying to eat a toy dinosaur

pic.twitter.com/mxEto64ZvE

— Emergency Cute Stuff (@EmergencyPuppy) November 21, 2013