Further Progress Is No Progress. - justin_guber

Further Progress Is No Progress.

This much is true.

Work has been bogging me down. Not all day, like last week, but suddenly popping up ten minutes before I get up and leave to start typing away at my damn script. I wrote the short film here at work between assignments. Maybe I should do the same with the feature. Things might move quicker. I've gotten used to my messy workplace filled with job requisitions, old newspapers, doodles of ideas and Oreo double stuff packets. No-one bugs me here unless I need bugging. And the FILTH is leaving, so his eyes won't hound me so when I'm doing stuff that looks non-work related (what am I supposed to do between assignments? Study?).

The nagging thought of possibly changing the entire first fifteen pages and starting again from scratch has also come to mind. Some say that once you have an ending, your sorted. Just get everything pointed towards the right direction. I have an ending I love. The meat in the middle is getting a bit difficult, mainly because the beginning just isn't... UMPHH! enough. Yeah. It doesn't have enough UMPHHH! in the opening. Must UMMPPHHH!-icize it more.

The extra storyline of the father and making the character half English are also things I'm considering chucking in the bin for another time. Either he'll be fully Malay but educated from the West, or he's from the West doing a study here in Malaysia. Might make it more appealing to people outside KL. It would mean introducing the history of all the myths and magic of Malaysia would be justified because he wouldn't have been brought up learning this.

The worry there is that I'll tread back on the same ground I'm trying not to tread on: creating a John Constantine copy. One of the reasons I didn't mention earlier as to why I wasn't going to play the lead, even though I'd love to play the lead, is that I know exactly how I'd play him. I'd make my own version of John Constantine. The story itself was inspired by the Hellblazer comic books (in some loose, meandering way), but now with Keanu's Constantine out, there's the fear people might say, "hey, he's copying that Constantine movie" as opposed to, "did you get your inspiration from the Hellblazer comics?" which I'd much prefer.

Didn't know this story was inspired by Hellblazer? Well it was. In a fashion:

I originally wrote the story about two or three years ago, to shoot with Jordan, Rauf & Jacob (all from the band Flatline) and a friend of theirs who delivered the line "sweet pussy" perfectly (but since has been removed from my current short film script). Originally, the story was set as a new kid in town trying to make friends, and the local gang of kids pull a prank on him making him believe there's a pontianak in Ukay Heights. We spent a whole day shooting one scene, and I didn't enjoy the process. Jordan was behind the camera, and although he was getting nice shots, the process was too slow for my liking. I like filming fast and hard (a complete opposite from my bedside manners, ladies, I can assure you).

Last year, I'd been trying to figure out a way to do something occult. Malaysia has a wealth of spooky stories to exploit and adapt, but those damn rules kept getting in the way. The reason I wanted to do a story of the occult was because I had been reading Hellblazer a lot throughout last year and wanted to do something similar in spirit.

I had a whole bunch of different stories. At one point there was the 'Pontianak Hunter' storyline, which was a kind of 'Buffy/Lost Boys/From Dusk Till Dawn/Evil Dead 2' kinda thing, but the sheer number of effects shots I had in mind daunted me. Then there was an exorcism-story I had in mind, that got scrapped.

Then I remembered the story I wrote years back, and adapted it into a situation that made more sense to me. If all goes well, I may be shooting the it on the 19th and 20th of this month, which is after the final submissions for KSFM Shorts, but they'll have another one coming up soon. This means I'll have more time to come up with a cool soundtrack, cut it better and get the screen quality up a notch. I could even reshoot if I want. This will be my practice for the feature length. 'Nicotine' wasn't enough of a test. It was a toe dipping in a huge, cold lake. With the short film, I'll get my feet a bit more used to the temperature before jumping in for the final plunge.

And I still don't have pontianaks. Improvise. Worst case scenario, I'll 'shemp' it.

2.3.05 08:42

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