Cinematic/tech artist & filmmaker. Online since 1999.
Concept: An attempt to understand said topic, rendered in the form of a nautical chart.
Software: Inkscape
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.
See Also: My previous infographic of the second Lancet study of Iraqi War Deaths at one per pixel, and photos of “the island” near my home town in Maine.
The following are the plugins in use on the Space Toast Pages, in the order in which they were installed. Note that plugins should be saved into Blosxom’s plugins folder with no file extension: do not add .cgi or .txt, for example, or they will not run.
Available here. Prevents Blosxom from reading designated directories. Necessary to keep certain text files in the old pages directory from appearing as Space Toast Pages. Minimal setup, no headaches.
Available here. Automatically inserts paragraph tags and line breaks. Big time saver. Minimal setup. Has an optional “wiki-like” markup system, on by default, which was disabled after it mangled a Creative Commons license. Grinds JavaScript to a bloody pulp. (Would do well to disable itself inside comment tags.)
Available here. Allows the contents of text files to be inserted dynamically into templates and stories. Used to add the “Current Addiction” to the sidebar. Minimal setup, no headaches.
Available here. Creates the “Next” and “Previous” links that appear at the bottom of the page when needed. Smart about when to add the links and when not to. Basic setup minimal, but changing the default wording and styling of the links requires digging through Perl code.
Available here. Required by the Entries_Cache_Meta plugin below. No setup, pain-free.
Available here. Allows a story to specify its posting date. Needed to backdate the old weekly issue Space Toast Pages and to keep Blosxom from treating edits as brand new postings. Poorly organized variable configuration slows setup.
Available here. Invites readers to post their comments about Space Toast Pages. (Hint: Dig through the >Run Fight Heal Magic line.) Complicated setup, but not out of line with total functionality. May need to be rethought if comment spam ever becomes a problem. Update: Was rethought when Comment Spam became a problem.
The problem of Comment Spam will receive its own posting shortly.
As if they’re ever really retired:
Dear CNN:
If you want to show your class, next time a Presidential debate ends, don’t talk. Don’t say anything. Just give us an hour of lovely American music — Sousa, Copeland, Gershwin — and allow us to think, discuss, and form an opinion. Is consideration no longer encouraged by the people of CNN? Every person you cut to after the debate walked into your studios with an opinion they wanted to deliver before the American people on prime time tv. That’s the candidates’ job.
A device I find useful when facing screenwriter’s block is to focus on what each character needs in a scene.
There is a school of screenwriting that would have us believe that all scenes are defined by what the characters want, but I disagree. I’ve spent many enjoyable moments with friends not particularly needing or wanting anything, and that’s what screenwriting basically is — voyeurism. Overemphasis on need-driven scenemaking destroys spontaneity and overloads the script with tension.
Compare the following problem scene from the first and second draft of “Windy City.”
First draft:
EXT. ESTER'S FLAT - NIGHT
DAN
Why didn't you stop?
NINEVE
Well it's not that I didn't like
dance, it was just the girls there.
But, being a senator's daughter,
you've got to have a certain amount
of...
She pauses at the doorknob, folds her arm formally behind her.
NINEVE
(cont.)
Poise. Charm. And most
importantly --
They enter.
INT. ESTER'S FLAT, CONT.
PAUL
...There's just NO WAY!
Nineve and Dan are startled. The adults stands around the kitchen table. Sherrib and Tigres look bitter, Ester and Gyllian defiant. Paul is angry. We've never seen Paul angry.
SAUL
(from the corner)
I can stay, whatever good THAT'LL
do...
TIGRES
Saul...
PAUL
(to Dan and Nineve)
They cut off our funding this
afternoon, the senate. We can't
afford to stay.
DAN
They can... just... do that?
SHERRIB
(to Nineve)
They cut room and board stipends.
Most of us don't use them, but the
valley delegates need them.
NINEVE
...Because they live at the hotel?
SHERRIB
Right.
PAUL
They called a special session this
afternoon. While we were out
watching the airship with everyone
else.
GYLLIAN
Little sneaks.
SAUL
All this money, you'd think I could
buy some brains...
TIGRES
(quietly)
Stop it.
PAUL
Mrs. Hadden has agreed to let us
stay here. Saul's staying on
at the hotel. Hana, Hale and
Tudaya have already made plans to
go back.
ESTER
You'll have to sweep up the dust
and flower petals, but it'll be
nice to have someone living in
the spare rooms again.
DAN
We don't have to go home?
PAUL
(surprised)
No, not yet. Not us anyway.
Second draft:
INT. SENATE - HIGH HALLWAY, CONT.
DAN
Then why didn't you stop?
NINEVE
Well it's not that I didn't like
dance, it was just the girls there.
But, being a senator's daughter,
you've got to have a certain amount
of . . .
Nineve stops at the end of the hallway, folding her arm formally behind her.
NINEVE
(cont.)
Poise. Charm. And most
importantly --
INT. SENATE - LIGHT TOWER, CONT.
PAUL
(angrily)
Well I DIDN'T!
Nineve and Dan start. Paul looks ANGRY -- we've never seen Paul angry. Sherrib, Saul and Tigres are with him, along with the other three valley delegates -- HANA, HALE and TUDIYA -- surrounded by telegraphs and windows.
TUDIYA
You're taking this far too
personally, Assurbani. No one was
expecting us to succeed.
SAUL
I'm sorry, Paul. I ran down there
as soon as I heard about it, but
there wasn't much I could do.
PAUL
You could've done something! Talk,
waste time. . . ANYTHING!
SAUL
When pop's money doesn't solve the
problem, I'm pretty useless. You
know that.
TIGRES
Stop it.
PAUL
Why didn't you at least -- ?
TIGRES
Stop it both of you! Ester?
ESTER
Paul and Dan can stay as long as
they need to with me. I have more
than enough room. We need to put
this in the proper frame of mind.
It's a setback, surely, but only
that.
ASSURBANI
Ester's right. Ester's always
right. We're still operative.
We've got to look for a way ahead.
HALE
You're wasting your time! Honestly,
I appreciate all that you've done
for us, Senator Sherrib. . .
PAUL
We still have funds for the hotel
through Friday. You can at least
help out until then.
HANA
Paul, let it go. It's done.
TUDIYA
No one was expecting us to succeed.
PAUL
Well I was! Dan, Nineve, come in.
They are still standing in the doorway.
PAUL
(cont.)
They voted to cut off our funding,
the Senate. The money they give us
for the hotel. Saul can afford to
stay. Dan, you and I are invited to
stay with Ester. Hana and Hale want
to go back tomorrow. Tudiya, you
can stay for a couple weeks, can't
you?
TUDIYA
I'm afraid I'll be going back as
well.
PAUL
(to Dan)
So our party is somewhat diminished.
DAN
But we don't have to go back?
PAUL
No. Not yet.
SHERRIB
They very quietly called a special
session this afternoon to vote on it.
NINEVE
How did they get enough people?
SHERRIB
Don't know. Everyone who's a
reliable vote for Chairman Khorsa
was there. I think they've been
planning this for a while.
PAUL
We were out watching the airship
with everyone else.
Is the scene better? Who knows, but I’m happier with it. It satisfies my need.
(In case you’re interested, I’m of the Jim Cameron school of screenwriting: “Just describe the movie.”)
This seems to be the summer of grand refutation for the “more is better” blockbuster. Spiderman 3, Shrek the Third, and the upcoming Live Free or Die Hard and The Bourne Ultimatum all seem designed to provide more of everything, but less of what we want. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is no exception.
Pirates 3 is a huge, clattering, whirring, blurring, shooting, smashing mashup of everything from the first two. Everything is bigger, everything is more. Every character is back. You’ve seen boarding scenes, but not like these — never this huge, never this chaotic. You’ve seen naval combat, but you’ve never seen a ship literally chewed apart by cannon fire. It’s fun while it lasts, and it lasts a long time, so why does it all boil down to a grand feeling of huh, well, all right then?
Pirates 3 is intensely all right, which alone makes it much more worth our moviegoing dollar than most of the summer blockbusters we’ve sat through. Most attempts at the kind of guiltless, unapologetic fun of Bruckheimer and Verbinski’s Pirates series fail. It turns out that popcorn movies aren’t easy. Pirates 3 has an extraordinary level of craftsmanship and amazing stats, but it also has a great deal of control — the most frequently missed ingredient of such blockbusters. What it does miss are two apparently contradictory elements: focus and chaos.
Picture a movie as a two-dimensional graph, on which anything can be placed; the only rule is the x-axis, which is time. Where the movie deviates toward the bottom of the graph, it moves toward focus. The movie knows what it’s doing, why it’s doing it, and how it’s certain to accomplish it. This is focus, in movie terms. Gosford Park is the most focused film you will ever see. It’s also one of the most boring experiences you will ever sit through.
At the top of the graph is chaos; here lies invention, awe, the subconscious. The non-narrative films of Matthew Barney lie entirely at the top of the graph. Even the apparent dips toward structure — the bike race in Cremaster 4, or the opera in Cremaster 5 — are just feints. Whatever internal logic or focus the filmmaker may have in mind, it’s not presented in the film.
At the bottom of the graph, Pirates 3 suffers, generally on the burdens of being the third of a largely unplanned trilogy. There are so many characters, so many plotlines. Betrayals happen so quickly and frequently from all sides that their resonances seems to cancel each other out, like plucking a guitar string from both ends at random. Who are the most important characters, what do they need to accomplish, and how? The movie jerks all too frequently toward the bottom of the graph, but never takes the time to make a solid, meaningful drive.
At the top of the graph, only one thing needs to be said: The characters take a trip to the afterlife. What makes the afterlife unique? Not very much, really — same sea and sky, same cinematography. The best we ever get is Captain Jack Sparrow’s private purgatory as a salt flat and a series of heat hallucinations. The mythical Far East is a series of generic nighttime sets which blow up predictably. Intangible sexual tension, which obeys its own unknown rules in the movies as it does in real life, is almost entirely absent. The movie wrongly believes that it’s in too much of a hurry to ever just stop, take a breath, and look around.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End lies almost entirely in the middle of our imaginary graph, delivering with verve and finesse all of the audience’s desires, except for the desire to dream.
The Space Toast Pages present a free audiobook of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann.” In his impoverished days as a student, a young American makes the acquaintance of an old musician whose singular genius draws him ever closer to the mysteries beyond the wall atop the Rue d’Auseil. This short story was originally published March 1922 in The National Amateur, 44, No. 4, pages 38-40. Rasmussen hates his voice, and hopes you will too.
Listen to podcast: TheMusicOfErichZann.mp3
[17 minutes, 52 second – 8.2 MB mp3]
This
work is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License.
