When I first started this site, way back in 1997, it was just a way to crack some jokes about the movies with my friends. It grew from there.
Pretty soon my jokes gave way to movie reviews of steadily growing length and my tastes shifted away from the mindless crap movies the site was originally built on. And then one day someone offered me money to place ads on the site. Suddenly it was professional. People kept volunteering to join the site. You may remember the names like Deadpool, Hollyfeld and Ultra Magnus. Rarely if ever do those guys write here anymore. Why? They all went after their dream of actually making movies, rather than talking or writing about them.
A few years ago I started feeling the bite of that bug myself. A weird thought at my day job caused me to start jotting down the idea for a movie. But I really didn't know how to proceed. So a plan formed to learn how to write a script. A lot of spare time went into one, based on a short story by the hard sci-fi author Larry Niven. I chose an adaptation to get started with, rather than my own idea, because although I had read countless scripts, never before had my writing taken that form. I wanted something to do to work out the bugs before trying out my own ideas. A couple of drafts later emerged a script I was thoroughly unhappy with. But the process was enjoyable and most of my problems came from trying to make someone else's story fit my writing style. There was only one solution to that.
One night while reading before bed, two completely separate ideas collided in my head and formed a great original idea. I grabbed my laptop and quickly spit out eight pages of a script. Just a start to be sure but it was magnificent stuff. I was now thoroughly hooked. The first script is now finished, waiting a second draft to polish it. Several more ideas have erupted and now something like a half-dozen partially written scripts litter my hard drive. I bounce from one to the next as new ideas hit me. My intention was to get a few finished and polished and then start looking to sell them.
But my problem got worse. After attending the funeral of my wife's grandfather, we came upon a videotape her family had made a couple years earlier at their vacation home. It was great stuff, but typical of home videos, way too long and rather aimless. I took it upon myself to do something with that material and began to edit the video on my computer. It took about three months of work (slow, yes but I was learning) to produce a damn fine hour long video about the family. I'm just now packaging it up and sending out to my wife's relatives.
Editing was even more addicting than scriptwriting. A minor itch had turned into a burning need for more. So now I am starting work on a short film that I intend to write, direct, edit and possibly star in myself. I'm not so sure on the acting bit. It's not really my thing but I don't know many actors at the moment. That could change.
So why am I writing all this? Because it's high time this site returned to being tightly attached to my movie passions. You've no doubt noticed the steady reduction of actual movie news. My interests were shifting and with it, my passion for detailing the progress of movies in production. More and more my time went to watching movies and writing them. And now to editing and soon shooting. There just isn't enough time in the day to do it all. I'm still fascinated by how movies are made, but I'd rather figure out how to do it myself than spend time writing about how others do it. If someone out there wants to step up and take over writing movie news for the site, send me an This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The job pays terribly but it will get you noticed.
Have no fear, I won't be kicking out the other writers to make way for my obsessions. Those writers are all much too good to let get away. In that aspect, the site stays the same. Hopefully, I will actually write more now. It will come in three main areas. I will still write movie reviews. A good chunk of my time goes to watching movies to see what works and what doesn't, so there's no reason not to keep writing reviews. My Psychotic Reactions column will continue sporadically as always. I want to be able to rant when the mood hits, so that stays. Finally, I will be writing this Wannabe blog. It will be a regular update on what I'm working on. This isn't an attempt to get attention for myself. I take great pride in the guys who started here and went on to work in the movie business and I want to keep encouraging that to happen. So the blog will be to detail my mistakes (I expect many) for those who want to do the same thing. In that vein I want to encourage any current film makers who read this to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and share their experiences. I'm not interested in gossip and the bad (or good) behavior of actors. What I'd like to get is talk about the craft of making movies. That's my focus going forward.
Hopefully this will be both informative and successful. Whatever happens, stay tuned, it should be interesting. I will try to keep a steady update on the short film and the feature I intend to make immediately after it. This is a scary jump but at the same time exhilirating.
- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it has lost his damn mind. He feels better for having finally admitted it.
