Tag: movies

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Getting Close! And Check Out This Podcast!

Hello Dear Readers!

I am extremely excited to keep you updated with my progress in the quest to get a book published.  I have had offers from more than one publisher!  Now it’s a matter of choosing which one will be the best one for the job.  It’s a tough decision to make.  I’ll let you know when I’ve signed on with the publisher I choose.

In the mean time, I got to be a guest on a film podcast that goes in depth into a movie.  I chose “Children of Men” (2006) and Doug Ferguson and I talk about it for an hour.  If you want to check it out, listen to it here.

I really love Children of Men; it’s one of my favourite films.  Nerding out with someone else who loves it was a real treat.  If you haven’t seen the film, there are spoilers in the podcast, but we do say “spoiler alert” before things get spoilery.

Here’s the trailer for the film if you are wondering if you are interested:


But after hearing Doug and I talk about it like we do, how could you not be interested in it!

I’ll keep you posted regarding upcoming publishing excitement.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heidi out.

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It’s a World of (S)Laughter: Jurassic World in Review

Jurassic World: It’s a world of (s)laughter

When I was little, I was all about dinosaurs. I had a subscription to DINOSAURS! magazine (from which I still have the glow-in-the-dark T-Rex skeleton I had to put together using a few bones that came with each issue). I went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum and was supremely glad to have experts to talk to about the minutia I was worrying about, such as whether Parasaurolophus had a skin sail which connected its head crest to its neck and/or back. It was vitally important for my drawings to be up to date with the scientific understanding of my favourite animals ever.

That was the first time I realized that science was an ongoing process, that we were constantly expanding and refining our understanding of how everything worked, especially the further back in time you go, and that they couldn’t yet tell me with certainty if the parasaurolophus had a skin sail connecting its magnificent head crest to its neck and/or back. I was perplexed; they were the experts, how could they not know. But then- if the experts didn’t know yet, holy smokes there must be so much to learn.

So I grew up and retained my love of all things dinosaur. I created and mod the Dinosaurs subreddit. It’s been great fun to see the community grow as we share our mutual love of all things dinosauria. Heck when that drunken reddit post about Lam(e)beosaurus hit the front page at the beginning of last year it was basically the best thing since sliced pizza.

Last night I went to Jurassic World. I fully intended to be disappointed but prepared to see things that would make me happy. My expectations were low. Things I wanted to see included: 1) dinosaurs, 2) Chris Pratt riding a motorcycle hunting in a pack with velociraptors, 3) the Indominus Rex, and 4) parasaurolophus because they are the best hadrosaur and obviously way better than lam(e)beosaur.

I got to see all of these things and more. Here are some of my likes and dislikes from the film.

How I turned against the familiar theme music
Right off the get go my excitement turned to annoyance at their cavalier use of the much beloved Jurassic Park theme music. They brought it in way too early and it served literally no emotional purpose other than to tug at the viewers’ heartstrings. To me, they were saying “hey remember how magical it was when you first heard this theme? Well here we go again. Oh you’re expecting to see something magical this time around again? Best we can do is an arial flyover of a crowd of people milling around this theme park. Oh maybe how about these characters going into their hotel room.” What a tragically wasted opportunity. To throw away such beloved music on nothing-scenes actually made me angry.

The viewer being inserted into the film as a character
They had a great character that represented the viewer and I wasn’t even annoyed at how obvious they were about it being us. He was the guy in the control room wearing the Jurassic Park t-shirt. Kind of cringy, right? But no, I liked him immediately, and his lines were all spot on. He was us, and they did a great job writing him so that he felt real and added a bit of humour here and there.

The sound design is stellar
When Indominus Rex escapes its paddock and is slowly searching for Chris Pratt, we hear the noise it makes for the first time and it sent a shiver down my spine. There was something strangely human about it, but then there were all sorts of terrifying nuances in the way its breathy growl seeped out through those teeth (so many teeth) that made it seem alien.

They also did a good job of holding off on showing us the entirety of Indominus for quite a while. We got some spikes here, a foot there, which really left me wanted to just see the damn thing already, but in a good way.

Raptors, raptors, raptors
They did a great job of treading a fine line between making the raptors terrifying but also relatable, able to follow commands but also clearly wild animals with hunting instinct. The raptor “Blue” had a nice splash of colour which hopefully we’ll see more of in the future when dinosaurs are portrayed on the big screen. Watching Chris Pratt work with them was pretty killer, and was basically the thing in the trailer that got me on board with this sequel. It delivered.

Reconning the (outdated) look of the dinosaurs
The had a little attempt at retconning the inaccuracies with the appearance of the dinosaurs. As you may know, we know understand that many dinosaurs, including plant eating dinosaurs had feathers. And they had colours! Heck dinosaur eggs just got a nice makeover when these ones were discovered to be blue and green! So why does Jurassic World have naked, boring brown dinosaurs? Wu says that if they had created dinosaurs as they had actually looked they would be very different “but that’s not what you wanted”… Sort of a nice nod to why they’re showing last centuries version of what dinosaurs look like, but also a little lazy. You’d think they’d be transitioning their theme park- you know, the theme park all about displaying animals meant to inspire awe with their appearance- to having more accurate looking animals that would be much more visually compelling. You know, with bright colours, camoflage, display patterns, and feathers? I’m a little disappointed they’re sticking with the outdated model of dinosaur appearance. When when WHEN will we get to see a big screen dino flick with right proper looking dinos? I hope it’s soon because it’d be nice if their images could get a massive update with the general public.

The skinny
All in all it was massively entertaining. There is a ton to knit-pick and many flaws, but over all I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was just good fun. Dinosaurs: check. Chris Pratt riding a motorcycle hunting in a pack with velociraptors: check. The Indominus Rex: check check check. And finally parasaurolophus: check. Granted they had minor appearances but you could tell they were the best dinosaurs in the park.

If you get a chance to check it out I hope you enjoy it! The discussion in my beautiful subreddit is here if you want to take part.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Juxtasubbing: Watching a movie with another movie’s subtitles

So during one of our long-distance-friend skype calls, my friend told me about a happy little accident which set me on this new hobby.

She loaded up an episode of Top Gear, famed British car show, but accidentally got the subtitles for Disney’s “Mulan” over top of it.

It produced some hilarious results, which the Top Gear subreddit loved.

She watched the whole episode like that and took screencaps throughout.

It brought a totally new meaning to the show of course.

So as she was telling me about this, my runaway brain began working on intentionally recreating this effect.

After some thought, I figured I’d need something to call it.  Juxtasubbing: watching a movie with another movie’s subtitles.

You load up the film and manually use another film’s subtitles- you play them together from the start, sit back, and take screenshots.

My first experiment with this was to juxtasub Scott Pilgrim and Fight Club, that is to say, I watched Scott Pilgrim with the subtitles for Fight Club overlaid.

It was quite challenging, as I was essentially watching two films at the same time (I know Fight Club so well that I was seeing it in my mind’s eye and hearing the dialogue as I read the subtitles).  This was exhausting for one not practiced in this strange new form of movie watching.  I’ll get better at it, I’m sure, but for now, I had to watch it in fits and starts.

I hit play, and looked for places where the subtitles created different meaning to the visuals on screen, or where they lined up in serendipitous ways. I didn’t jump around or alter this in any way; if you play Fight Club and Scott Pilgrim at the same time, you’ll get these same results.

Also, SPOILERS! If you haven’t seen Scott Pilgrim and/or Fight Club, this juxtasub will spoil parts of them for you! I’ll keep them to a minimum in this blog post, but I’ve included a link at the end to the full album and that is spoiler city!

And also this post is NSFW for language.

Onwards.

Pleasingly, the dream sequences lined up.

Then things started to make crazy sense.

And sometimes just little things would be brought together, like foreshadowing relationship problems between Scott and Knives.

Sometimes the fight scenes matched up, including the first one of each film.

And then this little sequence was too perfect (extra good because Wallace is gay, Scott Pilgrim is not):




There are tons more of course.

Full album is here if you want it.  (Like I said though, SPOILER CITY!)

So that’s Juxtasubbing. I am going to experiment with it some more. If you do, I hope you’ll share the results! The possibilities are endless. Mash any two films together and see what happens. We’re bound to find some delightful matchups.

If you’d like another movie-related thing to read, check out my post Aspect Ratio Madness!

Have fun!  Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Prisoners

I just got home from seeing a screening of Prisoners.

Holy smokes, I was not expecting that.  It had me on the edge of my seat for almost the whole film.  My chest is tight, my heart hurts from living in my throat for the past almost 3 hours.

The performances are excellent, the soundtrack is so unsettling, and the visual storytelling here is just top notch.  Oh, but the best thing, the very best thing, is the script.

I am so jealous of this script.  I want to give it a read and find out just how it managed to take me on this journey.  It had me in the palm of its hand and did things to me… things that films don’t do to me very often.  Like seriously, the intensity of emotion they managed to create; the craft level on every aspect of this film is stellar.  And like I said, the script-fu is just… damn.

I am a huge Hugh Jackman fan so I basically had to see this film, but it became apparent very early on that I was going to be in for way more than I bargained for.

I am having a hard time figuring out just exactly how to recommend this film; it’s not going to be for everyone.  Its pacing was brilliant, but it was slow (although it didn’t feel slow, if you know what I mean).  And if you have kids, god help you; I already feel sick to my stomach after seeing it, I don’t know how parents would survive this film.

 

Prisoners.

 

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“Luka and Iso”- Top 10% in The Nicholl Fellowship!

Hello wonderful blog readers!

I received an email from the Nicholl Fellowship today.

Every year, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences picks five writers and pay them, based on the strength of the script they submitted, to produce another feature length screenplay.

I didn’t make the cut for the Fellowship, but my script scored in the top ten percent!

7,251 entrants, and I’m in the top 10%?  Pretty awesome, but of course, disappointing not to advance.

Ah well, I’m hoping I can find someone out there as excited about the story of the first genetically engineered dragon as I am!  Perhaps this will help me along.  It will make a killer film.

Congratulations to everyone that is advancing.  I’m sure there are some amazing scripts, and how they’ll ever pick just five is completely beyond me!

In other news, I received my second ever royalty cheque!  Seems that A Quick Bite of Flesh is still selling.  Want some zombie flash fiction?  Then this book is forrr yoooouuuu!

I am waiting on an awesome agent for a new book I’d like to see in print.  Paranormal romance/urban fantasy here I come!  I’m well into the sequel already, and hitting short stories out of the park on a daily basis.

I’ll keep at it until- BWA HA HA YOU CAN’T STOP ME

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh what’s that?  This is my 100th post?

Hurrah!

Oh man, if I’ve been this into my small successes so far, when I get my first novel picked up I’m going to be happier than a kitten with a feather.  More excited than a porcupine with a banana.  You do know porcupines love bananas, right?

Anyway, thank you for stopping in and staying with me on this long, long journey to authordom.

Heidi out.

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Time to type every word I know: Coffee, Writing, Iron Man, Duck

As you may know, I enjoy participating in the various gift exchanges through Reddit Gifts.  It’s like doing a secret santa, only with thousands of other people, and for specific categories of things.

I was so pleased to open my Coffee Exchange parcel yesterday!  My package came from Macedonia– and contained Turkish coffee!  I tried making a cup this morning, and it was delicious (Without cream?!  Amazing.).  Very flavourful, and unusual.

In writing news, my short story “The First Gentlemen’s Galactic Scavenger Hunt” has been shortlisted for the World Weaver Press anthology, “Far Orbit- Speculative Space Adventures”.  I’d be super happy to see this one in print; I feel like it’s actually a project I’d like to expound upon a bit.  A scavenger hunt in space: what’s not to love?

I have also entered my screenplay in a contest to win tickets to PitchFest, where I would get a chance to hook a studio.  That would be totally mathematical.

Currently, I’m continuing a read-through of my Spell Carriers series, and I’m into the second book.  The first book took me three days, though it would have taken less if I weren’t making edits here and there.  It was a pretty easy read.  Trook Hunters starts off more complex, having had book one to set it up.

Anyway!  Enough ramblings.  What’s important here is seeing how they did the Arc Reactor makeup for Iron Man.

Painting on the latex.

A lot of latex.

A good sport.

Different colours for the different layers.

Airbrushed to make it look real!

They can peel the latex back and make it look like skin.

Final effect: amazing.

And, seeing as I have duck brining in the fridge, this:


:O

Well, I’ll keep you posted.  I hope one of these days to have some truly excellent news for you.  For now, I’ll keep at it.  I know that one day all this work I’m doing will pay off.  I hope it’s soon, but I’m in it for the long haul.  🙂

Cheers guys.

Heidi out.

PS: Leaked Jurassic Park 4 logo!

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THE END.

Well, the first draft of my screenplay is finished!  My latest novel, Luka and Iso, is adapted for the silver screen.  I have editing to do still of course, and actually quite a large chunk that I need to compress…  But the bulk is done.

Typing those two words, “THE END.” at the finish was actually far more satisfying than I thought it would be.   After all, I’ve written three books and dozens of short stories… but none of them actually have the words “THE END.” at the end.  They just sort of- stop.

But with the screenplay, it’s customary to put “THE END.” at the end.  And it felt good.

And now, as is my custom, I will take a break from it for two weeks, and work on a short story.  I’ll come back to it fresh, wielding my axe in one hand and my scalpel in the other.  Both help me cut away, in broad, messy chunks, followed up with precise, delicate cuts.

So good readers, Happy New Year.  I wish you the best of luck with all your creative endeavours!

Cheers,

Heidi

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One of my favourite books is coming to the silver screen

“Ender’s Game” by my favourite author, Orson Scott Card, is coming to a theatre near you.  As with most book-to-film adaptations, I am cautiously optimistic, hesitant, excited, and hoping for the best.

Today, the first look at Ender’s Game left my heart hammering in my ribcage.

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them…. I destroy them.

I am ridiculously excited for this.  They cast the battleschool children a little old, but that might be a necessity of having more capable actors to do justice to the complexities of the rolls.

And Ford as Graff…  oh man oh man.

Can you feel my heart pounding?

Here’s hoping.

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Robert Browning followed me home after a movie last week…

…and keeps whispering in my ear.

All he says is this:

At times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages’ way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted out—not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again.

Sooo… What I’m saying here is go see Cloud Atlas.  3 hours, beautiful, and worth it.  I remain heartbroken that it is drastically similar to a project I’ve been toying with; it may have to wait for a while, until editors are through a phase of submissions inspired by the movie.

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Adding to the melee of ideas

I’ve been seeing a ton of great writing recently.  Not in print mind you, I’ve been woefully inadequate in my reading habits lately, but on screen.

Skyfall was just fantastic.  The direction was brilliant, the cinematography a veritable bath of candy for my eyes, and the script- well damn.  The actors of course brought it to life with gusto, but they couldn’t have done so without the words there to work with.  Javier Bardem took it and ran with it, to great, great effect.

Some possible spoilers (but amazing images) in an album of amazing shots from Skyfall.

Fantastic imagery.

Also, something you may not have seen, is a cartoon called Gravity Falls, which I’ve been hearing all all about and finally started watching.  It’s a) extremely well written b) cute c) hilarious d) all of the above.

I can’t wait to see Grampton St. Rumpterfrabble as the rousable cockswain Saunterblugget Hampterfuppinshire.

Here’s an episode to get you interested.  I hope it can get some more buzz so we can see more episodes; the writers on this one have got it goin’ on!

And then there’s Wreck It Ralph.  Amazing!  The script is just awesome.  I’ve never heard the term “Pixar Level Script” until I heard people all abuzz about this film.  And it’s true.

How awesome for Pixar to have put out such a consistently amazing product that it’s become synonymous with tight storytelling. Trailer below.

And now I’m off to the cafe to sit and think and drink awhile while I stir the pots that have been simmering on my back burners.  Recently my mind stove has upgraded from a two element deal to four.  :O!  This means I have to pick my next project?  I have multiples I could be pursuing?  Man oh man.  Well, time to go suss them out.

Thanks for reading.  Hope you get a chance to take in some amazing storytelling on the big or small screen!

Heidi out.

P.S. Cloud Atlas is next up on my list, and hopefully this week I’ll get to Seven Psychopaths as well.  It’s a good fall for movies!