This came up today at work. I was working on a subtitle file for an audio commentary on an episode of Private Practice. Which episode is not important. Okay, it was called “In Which Dell Finds His Fight.” The title pretty much summarizes the thing, but here’s TV Guide’s summary:

Oceanside focuses on fertility and starts a dads-to-be class; Sam and Naomi struggle to figure out where their relationship is heading; Addison is conflicted about her status in the dating world; Cooper begins a secret affair with a colleague.

That’s not really relevant. I just wanted to share.

On the commentary are Taye Diggs (pictured, far right) and Chris Lowell (far left). And there comes a scene in which Kate Walsh and Audra McDonald are walking down a hall. You can almost hear Diggs and Lowell drool as they discuss the outfits the women are wearing. Diggs says, “Complementary outfits” and Lowell adds, “Complementary outfits, yes. Flattering.”

That’s how the subtitles were written. COMPLEMENTARY. And I had to fight the urge to change it to COMPLIMENTARY. I know the difference. If I compliment the dinner you just cooked, I loved it. If I complement it, I brought french fries. So in what way is the word being used here? What is the meaning?

There is such a thing as complementary clothing. As one might imagine, it’s clothing that belongs together, or is part of an overall outfit. But these were two outfits–dresses, actually–worn by two women, and they didn’t necessarily go together in that sense.

And Lowell actually says, “flattering,” which implies that the clothing was paying Walsh and McDonald a compliment, and not just a compliment but possibly an undeserved one. In fact, this clothing may have been downright sycophantic. Still, I think that was the meaning they were after. And though I can see the angle that suggests the dresses went with the natural “womanhood” of the actresses in question to form a complete whole, I doubt that’s the answer.

In spite of my misgivings, I left it COMPLEMENTARY, partly because, as Diggs himself says on the commentary track, all of ten people will probably listen anyway, and by my own estimate, of that ten, maybe only, like, eight, will turn on the subtitles.

But also, I didn’t want anyone to think they meant that the outfits were free.

Was I right to leave it? Is there an obvious meaning of complementary related to couture that I’ve missed? Let me know. I’m still working on the file, so there’s time to change it.

In 1979 a friend of the family dropped by our home in Camarillo, California. He had with him a blue book. There was a dragon on the cover. The title emblazoned across its top read Dungeons & Dragons. If that wasn’t enough to get my attention, he had dice. And oh, my flippin’ God, what dice they were! I’d never seen anything like them before. It was a game, he said, which I’d already deduced; my eleven-year-old brain was desperate to know what sort of game required such gorgeous, glittering dice. They were so beautiful I could have eaten them.

I bet a lot of children did.

Our friend photocopied the rulebook and gave it to me. I devoured it (this time, I’m speaking figuratively.) I tried to play. But the photocopied version of the game didn’t come with photocopied dice, so I had to play with a handful of sixers. Believe me, nowhere near as fun. I recruited neighborhood friend Victor (still a neighborhood friend, almost thirty years later) and soon after, picked up my own version of the game. I had the official rules, I had pencils, I had paper. And most of all, I had the dice. An an obsession was born.

I fed that obsession for years. Victor and I really had no idea what we were doing. Our campaigns were messy, hack and slash affairs with long fights and massive hauls of treasure. But as we progressed we learned he value of telling a story and by the time I was in my early teens, I was itching to tell more. I was like a primordial ooze. All I needed was a spark of lightning and I could get on with all the evolving stuff. That spark came when I picked up a Robert E. Howard Conan anthology. I was so enthralled that I grabbed a pen and began to write.

I haven’t played the game in decades, and I don’t write fantasy stories anymore (vampires are real, dontcha know,) but there was a stretch of years when I lived and breathed Dungeons & Dragons. I saved up my allowance to get all the rulebooks, mowed lawns to buy the modules, scored the odd drug deal to buy the miniatures and spent hours painting them in my bedroom listening to Thin Lizzy and The Who and Joe Walsh. And ever-present during that era, printed on all the material, associated with everything I collected, was the name Gary Gygax.

He died this week at the age of 69.

There are so many clever lines I could come up with to serve as an off-the-cuff epitaph. “He looked into the eye of a Beholder,” for example, or “He rolled for surprise and scored a 1,” or, my favorite so far, “He saw the Gelatinous Cube moving slowly down the hall towards him and when the Flaming Hands spell failed to stop it, he fled and sprung a pit trap, which he couldn’t avoid because he had a Dexterity Score of 8 and he fell and hit poisonous spikes and the DM laughed and laughed.”

The web favorite is this. “I guess he failed his saving throw.”

Seriously. Check it out. Even John August is in on it.

Rest in peace, Gary.

I know how to make exactly two balloon animals: the herpes virus and The sandworms from Dune.

Last Thursday night I’m sitting in the library at the College of Santa Fe to get some writing done. I enjoy writing in libraries. They’re quiet and comfortable and full of people completely unlike me (i.e. published authors.) On this particular night I observe a young woman meet with a young man and sit down at a nearby table. She’s wearing a striped skirt and a maroon top. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She’s soft-spoken, carries a binder and clings to a well-used tissue. The young man is stocky, with sandy hair. He’s got a black jacket on that’s a bit small for him. He has trouble modulating the volume of his voice, which is loud and cottony. From what I can tell, she’s here to provide some sort of guidance for his college career. If my guess is right, his studies have spiraled out of control and she’s here to help him.

Normally, that would be the extent of my interest. I would drop the headphones back on, turn up Steve Reich and get back to the script. But since the guy’s voice was so loud, I couldn’t help overhearing when they got to talking about his subjects and I realized that he’s a film student. He was taking History of World Cinema, Post Production and Fundamentals of Screenwriting. All the classes are giving him trouble, but what’s weighing on him is a script assignment.

Welcome to the ever-lovin’ club.

He’s having trouble with the homework, it seems. He’s also, apparently, opted against reading. TV and video games get in the way. She’s tries to map out his week and give him some sort of structure. “Do you feel you work better at night or during the day? What time do you wake up in the morning?” She asks those sorts of questions. His knees are moving back and forth. He’s tense. And then, briefly, when he’s describing the types of films he likes (Anime, for one, and action flicks) his knees stop moving. In that moment, the tutor’s own foot begins rocking back and forth, as if the nervous energy had passed from him to her. But now it’s back with him, because this is the point where she’s laying down suggestions and guidelines for his week. “Set your alarm for eight. Try to get some reading done in the morning. Try to cut back on television and games. What time do you usually go to dinner? Try to fit in an hour or two, four to five, or four to six to do some reading.”

He has a script idea, he says, but what’s giving him trouble is the format. What are all those indents and those CAPS and those transitions? Pleased to have a target on which to zero in, his tutor opens his syllabus and finds, buried within, a complete guide to screenplay format. The hapless student hadn’t even looked at the thing yet. So she suggests they go over it and see what they can learn.

“Font should be 12pt Courier. You know which font that is?”

He thinks about it for a second. “Not really.”

“You know how to change your font on the computer?”

“There’s no place to change that on my computer.”

“Do you use a Mac or a PC?,” she asks. It takes him a moment, but he’s able to answer that he uses a Mac

It’s at this point I realize that she’s trying to bail out the Titanic with a sugar spoon. This is where, if I were in her place, I’d say to the guy, “Well, that’s it. I can’t help you. Go play some video games.” But she says, “Let’s get on a computer and I can show you.” Why does she say this? Why does she persist when she could just throw up her hands and say, “Give it up, man, you’re never gonna be a screenwriter?” Because she’s a teacher, that’s why. Because she’s good at what she does. Because she’s selfless. Me? I’ve already given up. And I’m not even involved.

So in the spirit of teaching…

There are a ton of places on the web where an aspiring screenwriter can find a style guides for screenplay format. Just Google the term. But my own personal favorite is this one, hosted at the AMPAS website and written by April Rider. I don’t know if April Rider exists (I think she does,) but she’s written a clever series of scenes that demonstrate screenplay technique. It’s worth a read. Here’s the pdf.

So there. Go learn.

The first of Stephenie Meyer’s young-adult vampire series, Twilight, continues to gather cast members on its march to the big screen. Variety reports that Peter Facinelli is now on board, cast as Carlisle, the patriarch of the Cullen Clan. Also on board is Kristen Stewart as Isabella Swan (fresh off this weekend’s Jumper) and Robert Pattinson as the preternaturally pretty Edward Cullen. Lucky for Pattinson. He’s been killed off as Cedric Diggory, so it’s a nice turn of events that he finds himself at the forefront of a fresh franchise.

Or was that too many F’s?

The novel is quick and simple. Meyer’s protagonist, the smitten Isabella Swan, moves from Phoenix to the Olympic Peninsula and quickly learns that thanks to the perpetually gloomy weather, Seattle is where all the beautiful vamps hang out. She immediately falls for Edward Cullen, who, despite having been alive for over a century, still goes to high school, and she spends the rest of the novel trying to catch her breath at the mere sight of him.

Oh, and there’s a chase scene.

The idea of the novel appeals to me. Mercy knows, I love vampires. But its execution was flat and frustrating. I didn’t mind the reckless re-imagining of the Vampire archetype at all; I like to read new interpretations of the myth. But Isabella spends the entire novel swooning over Edward, and when action finally kicks in, it’s entirely external. The Cullen Family springs into action to protect Isabella from a nasty vamp. These fun and games, when they do come, move nicely and with terrific energy, but Isabella merely closes her eyes and hangs on.

Glaringly obvious to me as I read the book was that I’m hardly the demographic for the subject matter. In other words, I’m not a sixteen year old girl. This, in spite of my looks. But I read Scott Westerfield’s “youth-oriented” Uglies Trilogy (now in its forth volume, and certainly the subject of a future post.) I wasn’t a sixteen year old girl then, either. And I gobbled up that series up with a big spoon and a fancy curly straw. Be that as it may, Meyer’s vampire series (also a trilogy) have been wildly popular, so the jump to movies was inevitable.

As much as I’d love to have Melissa Rosenberg’s job adapting the novel, I honestly don’t know what I’d do with it. My instinct would be to kick up the conflict between Bella and Edward somehow and give Bella a bigger role in deciding her own fate rather than merely chain her to the plot. Also? I’d have the vampires drive spaceships and there would be a character named Boris Glensinsky who collects hood ornaments and gives them to his schnauzer.

Or would that be too much?

As of right now, there are 17 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes and 22 seconds until time’s up for submissions to this year’s Blue Cat Screenplay Competition. I only bring it up because if you’re thinking about entering, you might want to to rethink that. Well, I mean, unless you don’t mind settling for second place. I entered Element yesterday. We all know that clinches the top spot.

The competition isn’t a new one. Gordy Hoffman and Heather Schor have been turning over stones since 1999 in search of the undiscovered screenwriter. And it’s not just a screenplay competition. Hoffman’s organization also puts on workshops and live script readings. The entry fee is $50. First prize is $10,000. If you’re a top notch screenwriter that’s a guaranteed return on investment of a million percent. Plus you get a one page analysis of your script, suitable for framing. Very nice.

I don’t normally enter contests. I mean, I love rejection as much as the next guy, but usually it’s because I don’t have the required number of pennies and nickels to cover the entry fee and I always end up entering the contests that people like Ana Lily Armirpour and Young Kim Il enter, people with real talent, people who don’t just spill coffee on three-hole paper and call themselves Julius and Philip Epstein. But on this particular morning I decided to toss Element on the pile. Why not? I could certainly stand to be taken down a peg or two.

Oh, and I can’t ignore that wonderful name. Blue Cat. My nascent web design company is called Cobalt Kitty Design. Do you see the convergence? The cat, as they say, might just be in the bag.

Can you stand it?

A week ago I joined several other WGA members, aspiring writers and even a few SAG members in Albuquerque to do a little picketing. I was surprised to find out that there was a WGA contingent out here big enough to pull something like this together. I met a couple of the organizers at a cafe off Central and where we assembled and tracked down the set of Game, with which was shooting nearby with Gerard Butler and Alison Lohman. It went down peacefully and various news media dropped by to check out the Southwest’s microcosm of LA strife.

I’d link to the actual Albuquerque Journal article, but their site is like the proverbial Gordian Knot. So here it is, reproduced in its entirety from the December 14, 2007 edition:

Writers Take Battle to Duke City

By Dan Mayfield
Journal Staff Writer
Since 1992, Tracey Ann Kelley has written an episode a week for the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful,” from Albuquerque.

But not for the past month.

Since Nov. 5, when the Writers Guild of America went on strike, Kelley hasn’t written a word. She was Downtown carrying a picket sign with about 30 other writers on Thursday for the WGA’s national strike. Some were members of other unions, like the Screen Actors Guild and the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, showing solidarity with WGA. They were picketing outside the set of the movie “Game,” which was shooting at the Doubletree Hotel.
The writers union, which represents film and television writers, hopes to negotiate a better deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which pays them.

The big sticking point is residual fees when shows or films are re-broadcast, especially those shown over the Internet.

“The Internet is the future of soap operas like mine,” Kelley said. “You can watch my show anywhere in the world on the Internet.”

But, Kelley said, writers don’t see their fair share of the profits companies are making for distributing what they’ve written.

Kelley was joined by several other writers, such as Melinda Snodgrass. “I thought we were all alone,” Snodgrass said. “I never knew there were so many of us.”
Many of those on strike were also picketing Wednesday in Santa Fe on the set of the film “Brothers.”

Thursday was a national “Day of Action,” WGA said. Screenwriters from around the country picketed in San Diego, New Orleans, Burbank, Calif., and several more cities.

“We don’t have an official statement on this. It is absolutely within their rights. I respect and honor that,” said Lisa Strout, director of the state film office.

Writers come up with the best slogans. Get one on your shirt and support the cause by visiting the WGA Strike Swag site. I just ordered myself a shirt. Order one for yourself as well. My favorite slogan?

“We write. They wrong.”