tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-216863332024-03-13T14:13:53.092-04:00joseph o'brienwrites movies. writes about movies. writes about writing movies. talks a lot.Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-76350551701384808762019-03-23T22:17:00.001-04:002019-03-23T22:18:07.707-04:00ANATOMY OF A SCREAM: ALIEN (1979)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-57817030016052958192019-03-23T22:12:00.004-04:002019-03-23T22:15:01.005-04:00ANATOMY OF A SCREAM: THE THING (1982)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<br />Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-20393812226862755522019-03-23T22:10:00.003-04:002019-03-23T22:15:57.484-04:00ANATOMY OF A SCREAM: EXORCIST III (1990)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-12824901527604402242019-03-23T22:09:00.000-04:002019-03-23T22:16:06.509-04:00ANATOMY OF A SCREAM: HALLOWEEN (1978)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-51798516662001939702017-03-21T16:39:00.003-04:002017-03-21T16:39:07.166-04:00DEVIL'S MILE Review Trailer<div style="width: 480px; height: 270px; overflow: hidden; position: relative;"><iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" seamless="seamless" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitAllowFullScreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" id="okplayer" width="480" height="270" src="http://youtube.com/embed/SzzyUmBIk88" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 480px; height: 270px;" name="okplayer"></iframe></div>
<br />
via <a href="http://ift.tt/16Xitlp">IFTTT</a>
Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-91356938140805846842014-07-11T02:42:00.001-04:002014-07-11T02:42:13.357-04:00devil's mile at fantasia!It's official. My directorial debut <a href="http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2014/en/films-schedule/291/devil-s-mile"><i>Devil's Mile</i> is having its WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 26th! </a><br />
<br />
I am incredibly excited. The last time I had the privilege of attending Fantasia was in 1998, at its one and only Toronto engagement. That time I was selling t-shirts in the lobby. This time I get to premiere a film I wrote and directed. <br />
<br />
Milestones. It's good to have them. <br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BvtoP3dCaWY/UxE5JvzUJoI/AAAAAAAAAK8/TMPc_tiVJ6g/s1600/DEVILSMILE_MEDIUM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BvtoP3dCaWY/UxE5JvzUJoI/AAAAAAAAAK8/TMPc_tiVJ6g/s1600/DEVILSMILE_MEDIUM.jpg" height="640" width="432" /></a></div>
<br />Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-44725963939921724782014-03-18T17:05:00.002-04:002014-03-18T17:05:56.723-04:00punching through<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Hey, look who made this list of <a href="http://illusion.scene360.com/design/56838/cool-movie-posters-of-2014/" target="_blank">Cool Movie Posters Of 2014</a>!</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a6bByqNSBa8/UxGJ3Z7FwrI/AAAAAAAAAOg/DaLKcS7Dz4Q/s1600/DEVILSMILE_LARGE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a6bByqNSBa8/UxGJ3Z7FwrI/AAAAAAAAAOg/DaLKcS7Dz4Q/s1600/DEVILSMILE_LARGE.jpg" height="400" width="270" /></a></div>
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I'm really, really pleased about this. We're one of the only items on the list that isn't a major studio release and/or featuring major cast. <a href="http://phantomcitycreative.com/" target="_blank">Justin Erickson</a> did such a fabulous job designing the poster, and it's very gratifying to see it punch through on its own merits. Here's hoping it's a bellwether for the movie itself when it debuts this August. Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21686333.post-79785963006206144942014-03-09T22:03:00.002-04:002014-03-23T03:15:41.528-04:00pulp. fiction.I love pulp stories for their potent blend of simple storytelling and boundless imagination (when I wrote and directed <i>Devil's Mile</i>, the tone I told everyone I was going for was "pulpy"). Populist tales, driven by market and word count, and written at a blistering pace that left little time for authorial reflection or scholarly ambition. As such, they tend to be works of instinct over intellect, inner critics crushed under the weight of sheer pragmatism and imagination left to flourish, unfettered, in a way that is almost childlike. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pELKUFOkNGY/Ux0cIpkA41I/AAAAAAAAAQU/dnNm_DrMFTM/s1600/Gorilla-Of-The-Gasbags.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pELKUFOkNGY/Ux0cIpkA41I/AAAAAAAAAQU/dnNm_DrMFTM/s1600/Gorilla-Of-The-Gasbags.jpg" height="400" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Case in point.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
They are words banged out by writers whose desire to keep a roof over their heads and food in their mouths likely outweighed any lofty love of craft. And yet despite a mercenary environment practically designed with the lowest-common-denominator in mind, lasting, even classic works emerged -- H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard spring immediately to mind -- and continue to influence new generations of creators to this day. <br />
<br />
I'm fascinated by pulp writer and <i>Doc Savage</i> creator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Dent" target="_blank">Lester Dent</a>'s famous "Master Plot" formula because it represents such a strong and unpretentious distillation of the elements of effective storytelling. It's a document that could only be forged in a crucible of deadlines and financial necessity. The inessential and the indulgent are burned away; what remains is what <i>works</i>. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>What's particularly interesting is that it predates and presages the three act structure that is <i>de rigueur </i>in contemporary commercial screenplays, and anticipates them almost beat for beat. Dent broke his 6000 word model into four equal segments of 1500 words, but they also exactly describe the components of a three act screenplay with a midpoint break at the center of Act Two. What's old is new again. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>THE LESTER DENT PULP PAPER MASTER FICTION PLOT</b></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. It has
worked on adventure, detective, western and war-air. It tells
exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely just what must
happen in each successive thousand words.<br />
<br />
No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.<br />
<br />
The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.<br />
<br />
Here's how it starts:<br />
<br />
1. A DIFFERENT MURDER METHOD FOR VILLAIN TO USE<br />
2. A DIFFERENT THING FOR VILLAIN TO BE SEEKING<br />
3. A DIFFERENT LOCALE<br />
4. A MENACE WHICH IS TO HANG LIKE A CLOUD OVER HERO<br />
<br />
One of these DIFFERENT things would be nice, two better, three swell. It
may help if they are fully in mind before tackling the rest.<br />
<br />
A different murder method could be--different. Thinking of shooting,
knifing, hydrocyanic, garroting, poison needles, scorpions, a few
others,
and writing them on paper gets them where they may suggest
something. Scorpions and their poison bite? Maybe mosquitos or flies
treated with deadly germs?<br />
<br />
If the victims are killed by ordinary methods, but found under strange
and identical circumstances each time, it might serve, the reader
of course not knowing until the end, that the method of murder is
ordinary.<br />
<br />
Scribes who have their villain's victims found with butterflies, spiders
or bats stamped on them could conceivably be flirting with this gag.<br />
<br />
Probably it won't do a lot of good to be too odd, fanciful or grotesque with murder methods.<br />
<br />
The different thing for the villain to be after might be something other
than jewels, the stolen bank loot, the pearls, or some other old ones.<br />
<br />
Here, again one might get too bizarre.<br />
<br />
Unique locale? Easy. Selecting one that fits in with the murder method
and the treasure--thing that villain wants--makes it simpler, and it's<br />
also nice to use a familiar one, a place where you've lived or worked.
So many pulpateers don't. It sometimes saves embarrassment to know
nearly as
much about the locale as the editor, or enough to fool him.<br />
<br />
Here's a nifty much used in faking local color. For a story laid in
Egypt, say, author finds a book titled "Conversational Egyptian Easily
Learned," or something like that. He wants a character to ask in
Egyptian, "What's the matter?" He looks in the book and finds, "El
khabar, eyh?" To keep the reader from getting dizzy, it's perhaps wise
to make it clear in some fashion, just what that means. Occasionally the
text will tell this, or someone can repeat it in English. But it's a
doubtful move to stop and tell the reader in so many words the English
translation.<br />
<br />
The writer learns they have palm trees in Egypt. He looks in the book,
finds the Egyptian for palm trees, and uses that. This kids editors
and readers into thinking he knows something about Egypt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">Here's the second installment of the master plot.<br />
<br />
Divide the 6000 word yarn into four 1500 word parts. In each 1500 word part, put the following:<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> FIRST 1500 WORDS<br />
</b><br />
1--First line, or as near thereto as possible, introduce the hero and
swat him with a fistful of trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a
problem to be solved--something the hero has to cope with.<br />
<br />
2--The hero pitches in to cope with his fistful of trouble. (He tries to
fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem.)<br />
<br />
3--Introduce ALL the other characters as soon as possible. Bring them on in action.<br />
<br />
4--Hero's endevours land him in an actual physical conflict near the end of the first 1500 words.<br />
<br />
5--Near the end of first 1500 words, there is a complete surprise twist in the plot development.<br />
<br />
SO FAR: Does it have SUSPENSE?<br />
Is there a MENACE to the hero?<br />
Does everything happen logically?<br />
<br />
At this point, it might help to recall that action should do something
besides advance the hero over the scenery. Suppose the hero has learned
the dastards of villains have seized somebody named Eloise, who can
explain the secret of what is behind all these sinister events. The hero
corners villains, they fight, and villains get away. Not so hot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">Hero should accomplish something with
his tearing around, if only to rescue Eloise, and surprise! Eloise is a
ring-tailed monkey. The hero counts the rings on Eloise's tail, if
nothing better comes to mind.<br />
They're not real. The rings are painted there. Why?<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> SECOND 1500 WORDS</b><br />
<br />
1--Shovel more grief onto the hero.<br />
<br />
2--Hero, being heroic, struggles, and his struggles lead up to:<br />
<br />
3--Another physical conflict.<br />
<br />
4--A surprising plot twist to end the 1500 words.<br />
<br />
NOW: Does second part have SUSPENSE?<br />
Does the MENACE grow like a black cloud?<br />
Is the hero getting it in the neck?<br />
Is the second part logical?<br />
<br />
DON'T TELL ABOUT IT***Show how the thing looked. This is one of the
secrets of writing; never tell the reader--show him. (He
trembles, roving eyes, slackened jaw, and such.) MAKE THE READER SEE
HIM.<br />
<br />
When writing, it helps to get at least one minor surprise to the printed
page. It is reasonable to to expect these minor surprises to sort of
inveigle the reader into keeping on. They need not be such profound
efforts. One method of accomplishing one now and then is to be gently
misleading. Hero is examining the murder room. The door behind him
begins slowly to open. He does not see it. He conducts his examination
blissfully. Door eases open, wider and wider, until--surprise! The glass
pane falls out of the big window across the room. It must have fallen
slowly, and air blowing into the room caused the door to open. Then what
the heck made the pane fall so slowly? More mystery.<br />
<br />
Characterizing a story actor consists of giving him some things which make him stick in the reader's mind. TAG HIM.<br />
<br />
BUILD YOUR PLOTS SO THAT ACTION CAN BE CONTINUOUS.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> THIRD 1500 WORDS</b><br />
<br />
1--Shovel the grief onto the hero.<br />
<br />
2--Hero makes some headway, and corners the villain or somebody in:<br />
<br />
3--A physical conflict.<br />
<br />
4--A surprising plot twist, in which the hero preferably gets it in the neck bad, to end the 1500 words.<br />
<br />
DOES: It still have SUSPENSE?<br />
The MENACE getting blacker?<br />
The hero finds himself in a hell of a fix?<br />
It all happens logically?<br />
<br />
These outlines or master formulas are only something to make you certain
of inserting some physical conflict, and some genuine plot twists, with
a
little suspense and menace thrown in. Without them, there is no pulp
story.<br />
<br />
These physical conflicts in each part might be DIFFERENT, too. If one
fight is with fists, that can take care of the pugilism until next the
next yarn. Same for poison gas and swords. There may, naturally, be
exceptions. A hero with a peculiar punch, or a quick draw, might use it
more than once.<br />
<br />
The idea is to avoid monotony.<br />
<br />
ACTION:<br />
Vivid, swift, no words wasted. Create suspense, make the reader see and feel the action.<br />
<br />
ATMOSPHERE:<br />
Hear, smell, see, feel and taste.<br />
<br />
DESCRIPTION:<br />
Trees, wind, scenery and water.<br />
<br />
THE SECRET OF ALL WRITING IS TO MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> FOURTH 1500 WORDS<br />
</b><br />
1--Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.<br />
<br />
2--Get the hero almost buried in his troubles. (Figuratively, the
villain has him prisoner and has him framed for a murder rap; the girl
is
presumably dead, everything is lost, and the DIFFERENT murder method is
about to dispose of the suffering protagonist.)<br />
<br />
3--The hero extricates himself using HIS OWN SKILL, training or brawn.<br />
<br />
4--The mysteries remaining--one big one held over to this point will
help grip interest--are cleared up in course of final conflict as hero
takes<br />
the situation in hand.<br />
<br />
5--Final twist, a big surprise, (This can be the villain turning out to
be the unexpected person, having the "Treasure" be a dud, etc.)<br />
<br />
6--The snapper, the punch line to end it.<br />
<br />
HAS: The SUSPENSE held out to the last line?<br />
The MENACE held out to the last?<br />
Everything been explained?<br />
It all happen logically?<br />
Is the Punch Line enough to leave the reader with that WARM FEELING?<br />
Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?</span><br />
<hr />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>Lester Dent </b> (1904 - 1959) was a
prolific pulp fiction author of numerous stories, best known as the
main author of the series of stories about the superhuman character,
"Doc Savage."</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(via <a href="http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/" target="_blank">Paper Dragon</a>)</blockquote>
Joseph O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390382363595294241noreply@blogger.com0