SPOILER WARNING: This blog assumes you've seen the titled work and discusses plot points in detail so if you haven't seen the movie and don't want the surprise ruined, stop here.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a member of the Independent Writers Caucus of the WGA. However, all opinions expressed here are completely my own.

Main menu:

Screenplay Wiki

Site search

Categories

May 2008
S M T W T F S
« Mar    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Archive

Made on a Mac

HOME TOWN GIRL by Isaac Ho - Excerpt Reading at WGA

A 10 minute excerpt from my new script Home Town Girl will be performed as part of a staged reading series collaboration between WGA and SAG.

Home Town Girl is the story of Kimberly Wong, a former track star, who returns to her high school to coach but now finds herself training the teenage daughter of her fiercest rival. The cast features Linda Shing, Stephanie Lincoln and Cathy Cahn.

In addition to Home Town Girl, the work of Linda Videtti Figueiredo, Robert Davenport, Adam Hawk Jenson & John Kapral, Meg Jackson, Gary Goldstein, Kimberly Mercado and Sonya Gay Bourn will be performed.

Hope you can make it.

=========================

WGA/SAG WOMEN’S READING SERIES
Thursday, April 3, 7 p.m. (check-in 6:30-7:00)
WGAW Multipurpose Room, Second Floor.
Writers Guild of America, West
7000 West Third Street
(cross street Fairfax)
Los Angeles, CA 90048

Parking is available at the WGA or on the street

Reservations are encouraged as the space is limited.

You can RSVP by sending an email to diversity@wga.org. Please include “RSVP: Women’s Reading” in the subject line. In the body of your email, please list your name, the name of your guest(s), your contact phone and email, and your affiliation (eg: company, guild).

The reading will be followed by a light dessert reception.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are our friends… up to a point. They are useful for planting images quickly into the reader’s head. However, for the sake of your character (and your writing), it’s imperative that you subvert that stereotype as quickly as possible.

We all have our preconceived notions of what a gang banger is. Or a street hustler. Or a good ol’ boy. If your story is about one of these types then chances are, you’ll introduce traits during the story that will defy our expectations about him so we can empathize with his plight.

If not, then ‘gang banger’ will be all that we need to know about him and your character will remain a stereotype.

This point of view is born out of my own life experience. Upon meeting me for the first time, some people believed they knew everything they needed to know about me because of my ethnicity. In many ways, I fit the Asian stereotypes but in many ways, I don’t. Some people were surprised (and even offended) when I defied their expectations just by being myself.

Offend. Surprise. Defy expectations. These are important skills for a writer.

Take a look at how you introduce your protagonist.

JACK (30s), rugged good looks, bursts into the room.

Now turn to the last page of your script. How would you describe him now? What has he revealed about himself that expands beyond being a good looking lug? If you’ve done your job, you’ll probably have at least a dozen adjectives that would easily apply: adjectives that aren’t merely synonyms but at once complimentary, contradictory and incongruous.

Can you do the same for a character like this?

CLYDE (30s), gang banger, bursts into the room.

‘Gang banger’ is a good shorthand to get us started but what will we know about Clyde ten pages later? Twenty pages later? If you could cast the best actor in the world for this role, how would you sell the part to him?

Perhaps the most common example of unsubverted stereotypes involve female characters. How many times have you seen this:

JOANNE (20s), Tom’s girlfriend.

Or this:

JOANNE (30s), Tom’s wife.

Or this:

JOANNE (40s), Tom’s mother.

Does Joanne have an arc of her own? Does she have desires and demons that drive her to take action? Does she even surprise us? Or does she behave exactly as you would expect a girlfriend or wife or mother would behave?

You’re always in dangerous territory when a character’s defining trait is their relationship to another character. To dismiss a character as “just a mother” is taking the easy way out.

In theater (especially low budget theater), all your actors are paid the same whether they have one line or one thousand. Here, you must maximize the impact of each of your characters for more than artistic reasons. Creating a character whose sole purpose is to deliver a bit of exposition doesn’t make economic sense.

Part of my writing process includes informal table reads. Because of my theater background, I’m friends with many talented actors and often cast them for these table reads. I try to make the characters as interesting and challenging as possible, mostly to fully take advantage of their abilities and experience and partially to avoid the ribbing if I don’t.

Dexter on CBS

Dexter was made for premium cable. The violence is graphic and disturbing, but not gratuitous, the episodes are littered with colorful profanity, and the protagonist is a sociopath, serial killer who fully demonstrates the theme that some people deserve to die — and die painfully.

When CBS announced that it would air Dexter on broadcast television during prime time, my reaction was like everyone else familiar with the show… how?

Even before we consider content issues, time must be addressed. The pilot episode of Dexter, (teleplay by James Manos, Jr.) as aired on Showtime, ran just under 53 minutes less the end credits. A one hour show on broadcast television typically runs anywhere from 41 to 43 minutes once you take out the commercials and the end credits. How did Dexter get down to 43 minutes?

The answer is, they didn’t. As aired on CBS, Dexter clocked in at just over 48 minutes. This was accomplished by tightening the editing: enter the scene a second later, leave a second earlier, cut some of the banter and it adds up to a fairly significant chunk of time.

In terms of content, the most notable change was the lack of profanity:

“What the fuck?” becomes “What the hell?”
“Are you boning her?” becomes “Are you dating her?”

And most embarrassingly:

“Mother fucker” becomes “Mother lover.”

Sergeant Doakes will suffer the most from these changes since much of his character is revealed through his aggressive use of profanity.

While many scenes were significantly trimmed, no scenes were cut entirely. All the ‘Killing Room’ scenes were intact because, by design, much of the violence and gore on Dexter is suggested but not seen.

The only editorial change of note comes after the death of Jaworski, a rapist-murderer who was found innocent because of a technicality. CBS trimmed three seconds of Jaworski’s bloody dismembered leg as Dexter packs it up for disposal. Even so, we still get a good look at that leg for nearly two seconds.

Jaworski's Severed Leg

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

CBS also chose to cut the following two crime scene photos from a murder case in the subplot.

From Showtime

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The remaining photo was still provocative enough for us to get the point.

Crime Scene Photo on CBS

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

One juxtaposition was lost as a result of the cuts. About 23 minutes in (Showtime version), Dexter walks the streets of Miami looking at young lovers out enjoying a Friday night. Dexter opines:

When it comes to the actual act of sex, it always just seems so undignified.

On Showtime, the camera pans to reveal this:

Crotch Rub on Showtime

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

On CBS, this is as close as we got to seeing some hand on crotch action:

Crotch Rub on CBS

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It can be argued that most of these changes were made for time and, despite some sanitation, had minimal impact on Dexter’s themes, characters, tone and texture.

In 1993, NYPD Blue sparked controversy with its cutting edge use of profanity with regular use of words like “asshole,” “bitch,” and “tits.” NYPD Blue also pushed the bounds of permissible nudity. However, the controversy quickly faded because each episode reinforced the theme that good people sometimes have to do bad things to keep the rest of us safe. Sipowicz may be a bigot and an alcoholic, but deep down, he’s a good man who will do anything to make the world a safer place for the rest of us.

Dexter’s true subversiveness lies in its themes. The audience is asked to empathize with and, at times, root for a cold blooded murderer.

Without remorse, without consequences, crime does pay for Dexter. Unless you’re a child murderer or a rapist-murderer, the world is a safer place because of him. Dexter may be a sociopath, but he’s our sociopath.

Product Placement

…starring Jennifer Garner.

Download link

Are We Ready for Obama?

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans…

– John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was the first president born in the 20th century. His thesis was that the era of his birth shaped his worldview differently from his predecessors. Kennedy came of age during World War II when Americans lived with the fear of being overrun by a totalitarian state. Citizens were asked to sacrifice, not just our freedom, but to save our very existence as a free nation.

That sacrifice meant rationing meat, sugar, coffee and gasoline. We also sacrificed hundreds and sometimes thousands of soldiers in a single battle.

It was this worldview that dominated the presidency for over thirty years. Each successive president, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were between the ages of 17 and 30 when the U.S. entered World War II and all served in the military.

In 1992, that changed.

Bill Clinton was the first Baby Boomer president. He was the first president born after World War II. The America that the Baby Boomers saw was one of great promise, opportunity and prosperity. The average American didn’t have to worry about survival but now had a chance to thrive. Adjusted for inflation, one dollar in 1955 had the buying power of $7.50 today. A college education was within reach of the middle class. You were expected to find a job and stay with it through retirement.

Once the presidency shifted from the World War II worldview to the Baby Boomers there was no turning back. The Republicans ran Bob Dole, a World War II veteran, against Clinton in 1996 and he was soundly defeated. With George W. Bush serving two terms in the White House, the Baby Boomer worldview has led the United States for 16 years. Nearly all of the current major party candidates for president in both the Democratic and Republican parties fall squarely in this worldview.

Except one.

Barack Obama was born in 1961. His worldview lies on the cusp between the Baby Boomers and the Gen Xers. The Gen Xers came of age in a era which saw scandal bring down a president with Watergate, runaway inflation, gasoline shortage and the loss of American world dominance with our withdrawal from Vietnam and the Iranian hostage crisis.

Clearly, Obama has captured the imagination of the Gen Xers but will that be enough for him to capture the presidency? According to the most recent U.S. census data, Baby Boomers number approximately 72 million people which represents 25% of the U.S. population. Gen Xers number approximately 82 million people which represents 28% of the U.S. population.

Has the time for Baby Boomer leadership come to an end? Clinton and Bush leave behind a mixed legacy for the Baby Boomers. With Obama’s strong showing, Gen Xers are sending a clear message that they can do better. Is the United States ready for a Gen X president?

Staged Reading - Home Town Girl

My latest one act play will be given a staged reading. “Home Town Girl” is the story about a woman who returns to her high school to coach the track team and ends up coaching the teenage daughter of her former rival.

Hope you can make it.

=====================

Please join us for our first “Script in Hand”

A monthly reading series presented by TNKat and ART 168

KOREATOWN
By Damon Chua

With: Joseph L Roberts, Elizabeth Pan, Sam Mak & Joyce F Liu

and

HOME TOWN GIRL
By Isaac Ho

With: Feodor Chin, Elaine Kao, Stephanie Lincoln, Chris Tashima & Cathy Cahn

Thursday, January 17th, 8:00pm
Armory Center for the Arts
145 N. Raymond Ave.
Pasadena CA 91103
(Free street and garage parking on the same street)

$2 Suggested Donation Benefits Thumping Claw 2008
Refreshments Served

“Script in Hand” is a monthly Staged Reading Series.
Every 3rd Thursday of the Month 8pm – 10pm

An Impending Rupture of the Belly

Impending PosterI wanted to give a shout out to my buddy Matt Pelfrey. His play, An Impending Rupture of the Belly, was recently published by Broadway Play Publishing.

I saw the full production of it earlier in 2007 when it was produced by the Furious Theater Company. His skill as a writer is using language as a weapon and Matt is in full form with this play.

Matt teaches playwriting at UCLA where this play was developed.

More information about the play can be found here. Check it out.