I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU, BLOG

So the day I got laid off I was writing an in-depth post about all the sundry horseshit going on in my head that kept me from focusing.

Then I got fired! Yay for life and I totally forgot to post it!

Let’s discuss a bit the anguish I’m presently having re: actually attempting to be a screenwriter.

See, the problem is that I have way too many individual ideas and projects rolling around in my head at present. In my previous entry, I’d described them as “rattling around inside my head like a angry bees.” I’m not focused, my attention is divided up like a scattershot fusillade from a battleship, rather than being focused intently on one project like a laser.

Presently, I’m working on 12 projects.

1. Doomshrooms – Horror/Comedy – Feature.

Uh it’s about killer mushrooms.

Partially inspired by the absolute trashheap that was AVP2 combined with the fact that I’m the only dude I know that likes to eat mushrooms. I’ve been revising drafts since the middle of 2007, still anguishing about structure and narrative flow, feel that I’ve put too much stuff in, despite the fact that it’s as barebones as I can get it.

Will discuss Doomshrooms more in further posts.

Status – Working on it, seriously for reals yo!

2. Zombie Nation – Comedy/Horror- Feature

-Or – Schadenfreude Za Film. There was recently a news story that explained that schadenfreude can be quantified and actually mapped as impulses in the human brain.

So naturally, I came up with some monsters that feed solely on the suffering of others – they do delightfully horrible things in order to revel the woe it creates. Said monsters are floating, fang-mawed disembodied heads.

Sequel to Doomshrooms. “Hero” is a big mean old troll. Of the internet variety of course.

Status – Started life as Doomshrooms, several of the scenarios and dialog exchanges I’d written turned out to be way too jokey for the more horror-oriented Doomshrooms. I ended up splitting those jokes off into it’s own property which is a semi-sequel to Doomshrooms. ZN shares the location and several characters, but the focus characters from Doomshrooms are supporting characters for ZN.

3. Devil Cars (working title) – Horror/Comedy – Feature.
Evil hot rods possessed by Nazi Wankel rotary motors that were designed to operate on biofuel distilled from concentration camp victims. Once they taste blood, they go on a rampage.

Most definitely inspired by the 1974 exploitation flick The Car (which was Jaws in the desert, if you haven’t seen it, take the time out to find the torrent and give it a view, would you?) as well as any myriad of hot rod flicks in which a scrappy underdog and his junkyard machine are pitted against the cocky overdog with a high-dollar rig. To say that references to Christine, Vanishing Point, The Duel and The Car will go unmade would be a criminal act.

We did a little youtubing and discovered a car called the Furai, which is a Wankel rotary-motored badass that growls and howls like a hungry predator on the hunt.

Status – Prewriting stage development hell. Devil Cars is only serving to be a distraction getting in the way of finishing Doomshrooms and Trainwreck!

4. Nommed – Horror/Comedy (go figure right?) about giant, maneating catfish and a noodling festival.

I really enjoy taking stories from the news that are horrific on their own and then spinning them into delightful new directions. Apparently there’s an Indian catfish what grows to six feet plus that has developed a taste for humans and has been nomming.
Then there’s the practice of noodling, which I find hysterically funny. I’m a dude who’s always looking for an unconventional and hilarious way to kill small animals for recreation purposes and noodling looks to be an absolute blast. When/if I move to Texas, I am most def taking a roadtrip to Oklahoma so I can participate, even if I absolutely cannot stand the taste of the fish, personally.

Status – Prewriting development hell, roadblock in the way of more pressing projects.

5. Aeon Babel: The Genesis Saga – The Asylum-Style Knockoff – Feature

So uh I’m sure that unless you’ve been livin’ under a rock that some dudes want to make a live-action feature film based on that Evangelion show from the ’90s.

Well, since I am in love with The Asylum and their brilliant, cynical knockoffs that sometimes somehow manage to actually be better than their source material (I Am Omega, Transmorphers and Alien vs. Hunter. Monster was a piece of shit though and they should be embarassed.), I really more than anything wish to work for them. So, this is my howdy do toward The Asylum while at the same time trying to show that I can do Evangelion better than Peter Jackson.

As with so many of the things I write, it’s simultaneously tearing it down while paying it respects. A roast of the source material, if you will. TVTropes would call it ParodySatirePastiche.

6. U.S.S. Spiro T. Agnew – Hard SF – Serial

Agnew is a thing I started writing back in 2002 or so, back when I worked for Actionfliks. My idea was to spin off the situations I’d developed for a property called Equinoxx, in which I developed a GRIMNDARKDARKNGRIM near future set during the aftermath of a failed war of independence among Earth’s Solar System colonies. The story centers around the crew of a tugboat, the (can you guess?) Spiro T. Agnew and their deep space salvage operation.

Aside from a somewhat-plausible method of FTL, I’d intended on making Agnew a grounded Hard SF series in contrast to Soft SF (or sci-fi/skiffy) series. A recurring theme to the show is how the crew of the Agnew is involved with or the direct cause of any number of planet-killing disasters, each of which are culled from the absolutely brilliant End Of Days scenarios archived at Exit Mundi.

Agnew is my counterpoint to Firefly, which I absolutely fucking hated (you’d better fucking believe that I’ll rail about Firefly in future posts, stay tuned for that.)

Status – Tons and tons of prewriting, a few unfinished first drafts, lost interest circa 2004 and went on to other projects and ideas. As recently as last month though, I was discussing this idea with a fellow writer and it rekindled my interest in it. Naturally, this idea is buzzing around in my bonnet, distracting me from working on Doomshrooms (which I’m committed to finishing goddammit).

7. The Passion of Futuropolis – GuitaRPG – Video Game

2006 or so saw a flurry of creativity on my part, the likes of which have more or less led to my presently clogged up intellectual gutters.

I’d originally wrote Futuropolis as a cartoon series, then as a feature, now I’ve decided it’d work best as a video game. The story followed a young guitarist who sought to follow in the footsteps of Futuropolis’ hero Mr. Mootorikoura, an agriculture robot who taught himself to play guitar and then went on to save the universe with the power of rock and roll.

The entire property was full of tongue-in-cheek references to rock music (as well as obtuse references to obscure video games ZU-style), almost all of which were made irrelevant by the show Metalocalypse, which is why I shelved the idea.

Then, very recently I saw something totally fucking cool. Guitar Hero On Tour for the Nintendo DS. Then gears started turning in my head: why not utilize the World Tour peripheral and use it as an input device for a guitar/rhythm-based fight mechanic paradigm for an RPG. I intend on re-purposing this project as a game design doc. Granted, I’m aware that the World Hero peripheral will be obsolesced by the next rev of the hardware, I’m not going to allow that to stop me from writing this thing out on spec.

Status – Nearly complete outline and much of the first draft for the pilot episode has already been written, it’d be a triviality to repurpose it into a game design doc.

8. Exciting Tales of Danger and Adventure For Boys – Sci/fi – Serial

Exciting Tales started life as a comic book script that I’d written in collaboration with a forum buddy that I’d long ago dropped out of communication with (duder if you’re still around AIM me or whatever). Our original idea was to make a steampunk book set in the “Old” West sometime around the time that Pancho Villa was beginning to ride. The plan was to make it a bit like Young Indiana Jones in that Our Heroes would constantly be meeting historical figures on their world-spanning adventure through Victorian times, all of which written in the style of a dime novel.

Then it became obvious that given all the wacky historical figures of the time would complicate the timeline. Our Heroes would be fighting Villa in one arc (1917) then in another arc, one character has a dalliance with Hitler’s mother (a historical possibility as it’s been widely accepted that Adi-kun was the product of an affair) but this event would have had to take place in 1889.

So, in order to clean that up, I decided that it’d be best to try and write the piece as if it were a series of Spec Fic novels written in the 1860s looking forward to the far-off year of 1899, in the same vein that Spec Fic novelists of the 1960s looked forward to the distant year 1999 with optimism and awe. This allows me to have more fun in a completely fictional steampunk world, rather than anguishing about any sort of historical accuracy. Most certainly inspired by Jules Verne, who in the 1860s predicted atomic submarines and lunar voyages in much the method they’re done in modern times.

Status – Three or so episodes written in comic book format. Need to be re-written to fit my new paradigm.

9. Some Bond Thing – Feature

Our IRC channel spawns many of my ideas. We (mainly Scott and I) were discussing the Bond franchise and how the damn thing should not exist in 200X, but should be forever grounded in 196X.

So, an idea formed revolving around a Soviet Air Colonel who hatches a brilliant scheme to steal the bombs from his bomber fleet and transport them to Egypt for a black market auction.

I’d love to return Bond to his roots as a spy/commando who gets by on his wits and guile more than his gadgetry. And all the while boffing every sex kitten in his path.

Status – Less “prewriting and outline” than “dude this is a sweet fucking idea let’s work on it!”

10. Belowdecks: A Star Trek Spinoff – Serial

Okay fellas, I’ll be frank with you here. I’m a Trek fan. Always was, always will be.

What I hate though about Trek is that the stories always circle around the bridge crew. Why do we give a shit what the executives are doing when there are so many more interesting stories to be told about the enlisted men and civilians on a starship.

I recall reading in the TNG Tech Manual that a Galaxy-class ship (such as Ent-D) has some 1200 civilians onboard. What about their stories? The only civilians we ever met on the ship were Keiko and Guinan. DS9 was a little better in this regard, giving us many more civilians than officers, but we still never got to hear from an enlisted man (except O’Brien, who is the highest-ranking enlisted man in the main cast).

I’d like to remedy this. I’d love to have an Ensemble Cast Drama set on a Federation starship. A show about the civilians and their hierarchy, about the enlisted men and their jobs, about the Marines and civilian police/emergency staff, about the engineers and technicians. Many interesting stories could be told about all the salty, swearing dogs on a starship.

Status – See Bond Thing above.

11. Escape!: Youtube serial

Very recently, I came up with a neat idea for a web original no-budget series that I can produce to show off my mad l337 skillz as a video producer.

A flying saucer appears over the city mysteriously and entraps the residents therein. Heavily inspired by The Prisoner (the best show ever yes even better than The Shield).

Will post more about this in the near future also.

12. And finally: Trainwreck! – Action/Horror/Comedy series about which I’ve written extensively on my other blawg. I have twelve episodes and one feature film plotted and outlined. Three and a half episodes actually written. Trainwreck! Is the story of Honus McGillicuddy – all-American power tools salesman who has a supernatural ability to track down hellmouths. Its his personal mission to drift the American Southwest and close these gateways to the nether, hunt down and destroy all the monsters that have poured forth.

He’s tracked by two weapons testers who work for a defense contractor, two FBI agents and a cutie reporter who thinks that what he’s doing is a big story. All of whom have ridiculous names – it’s sort of a running gag in the series.

Trainwreck! Was developed in response to Torchwood, which is the “adult” spinoff of Doctor Who about a bunch of top secret government types who capture alien technology and use it for dildonics. As it is “for adults serious business” it’s actually directed toward a viewership who’s maturity level hovers somewhere around twelve years of age.

But I digress. Trainwreck! Is intended to be an action/comedy series that simultaneously mocks and praises the sci-fi and horror genres.

Status – uh… I’ve written three or so episodes (only one of which can be considered “complete”) and outlined a feature length pilot episode. As much as I would like to put all my efforts into Trainwreck! I get the distinct feeling that no money man in the TV business would dare dump millions of dollars onto an untested showrunner’s lap. So alas, I’ll have to keep fighting my other projects and hopefully get the recognition I need to get Trainwreck! Off the ground and onto your TV screens.

Then dudes like me will bitch about it at length on message boards and blog posts for years to come and I’ll be every bit as reviled in the community as Joss Whedon. Oh would that ever be a dream come true?

Buh, this is six pages in my MSWord window.