Choosing a subject for your writing: CAM-GIRL

    

     It is the first problem every writer faces; no, not how will I ever get my great American novel published, but having to pick a subject for your story.  I have three criteria that I base this decision on for my work; Marketability, Originality and Strength.

     MARKETABILITY: The harsh reality is unless you are already and established writer with a strong fan base, novels do not sell themselves, just as screenplays do not sprout wings and land into the hands of producers.  Every aspect will require a lot of hard work from the writer, that is why it is best to feel confident about the marketability of your idea before you write the first word.

- Who is your audience?

- Does this story feel like it could appeal to people of many walks of life?

- Would this story be relevant to an international audience?

These are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself.  It is possible and ideal to write a novel or screenplay that would win the interest of a small, niche group as well as a wide range of people.   It all comes down to the subject.

     Cam-Girl, my first produced screenplay and the novel adaptation Box Cutter Killer is about a single mother who works as a web cam stripper and is pushed to the limit when a stalker invades her life.   Thriller or Horror films tend to do well even when produced on lower budgets and as the saying goes; sex sells.  This was a highly marketable idea for a movie that could be produced on a low budget; that is why with Cam-Girl my writing finally started getting noticed and eventually produced and picked up by a distributor.

     ORIGINALITY: Has your story already been told?  If the subject has been explored in other work you could tell your story from a different point of view or write it in a genre that would make it original.  For example, Warm Bodies is a horror-love story told from the perspective of a male zombie who is torn between true love and a hunger for brains.  Of course there is Shaun of The Dead, the most successful horror-comedy to ever hit theaters.  

     Just look at how often Macbeth has been remade in countless original film adaptations; Akira Kurosawa made his with samurai’s and set it in Japan with Throne Of Blood.  Roman Polanski made his distinctly European version and Scotland,PA told the story of Macbeth with a hamburger stand as the main location.  

     Figuring out if your story is original or not requires that you do the research.  Do a search online for books or movies about your subject.  I make it my job to watch thousands of movies, all kinds of movies.  That is how I knew writing the screenplay for Cam-Girl in 2009 was a good idea.  Web cam stripping was a fairly new profession at that time and I found the subject interesting.  I thought of a story that would be a good fit for a protagonist who was a cam girl, then I was off and running.  Most importantly, there were no other films on that subject; there were many movies about strippers, but not cam girls.

     STRENGTH: This third criteria can sometimes be overlooked by writers and it never should be.  Write for your strengths.  Can you relate to your subject, story or protagonist in a personal way?  If so great, write about that and express yourself through the story. Maybe you have other comfort zones; like a style of writing you know is your strong suit.  Take the best selling author Chuck Palahniuk for example.  Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Damned all center around interesting iconoclasts, outsiders who live on the outskirts of society.  It could be due to radical political views, sexual orientation or going from immense wealth then into the depths of Hell, but all of his narrators have something that sets them apart.

     Are you great at writing dialogue?  If so pick stories that are character driven.  Aaron Sorkin, KevinSmith, Quentin Tarantino and David Mamet have based their careers on the strength of their dialogue.  Novelist Hubert Selby Jr. has a gift for writing street people, he cuts through his narrative with authentic slang dialogue in his novels such as Requiem For A Dream and Last Exit To Brooklyn.

     
     Since I wrote a few screenplays before Cam-Girl I knew character and dialogue were what I am best at.  Cam-Girl and Box Cutter Killer have their moments of action an suspense but they are largely character driven pieces that are full of hard hitting lines of dialogue.  The movie has some humorous and introspective voice over which is something I always enjoyed writing and made Cam-Girl easier to adapt into a novel.  I hope this has helped to inspire some ideas for your writing.  Anyone can enjoy a well told story, all you have to do is write it.   

NOTES ON PLAYWRITING:

      There is something different about writing for the stage. It must be because of the rich history that medium has; David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Thomas “Tennessee Williams and Shakespeare all make it a privilege to call yourself a playwright. Plays are the oldest form of written word to be performed.  A playscript is a living, breathing art form, it will exist and be re-interpreted as long as there are actors willing to speak your words.

     After my recent good fortune of having a screenplay produced into a feature film; a thriller called Cam-Girl and also adapting that movie into a suspense novel, I decided to try my hand at writing a story that was meant for the stage.   This was not something I was going to dive into blindly. Playscripts have always been held to a high standard, that is why playwrights are credited before the director of a play.  I knew that playscripts were a true test of a writer, they primarily deal with character and dialogue, unlike the spectacle of Hollywood blockbuster films or feeding the boundless imagination that a reader can have when they read a novel.

     Hurlyburly, 12 Angry Men, Glen-Garry Glen Ross and Extremities; many of my favorite movies are based on plays and reminded me of how polished the dialogue has to be and how strong the characters have to be who speak the well crafted prose of the playwrite.  I watched those movies over again and read a few playscripts, such as Bachelorette which was later made into a feature film Written and directed by the playwright Leslye Headland and starring Kirsten Dunst.   The script for Bachelorette was published in an annual collection titled New Playwrights: The Best Plays 2011. This book series is a great resource which I highly recommend, it lets you keep up to date with emerging talent and see the types of plays that are recently being produced.   Classical plays are still captivating, but the tastes of the public have changed a great deal since the days of Shakespeare.   I wonder what Shakespeare would be writing if he was alive today?  I bet he would have a blog, but maybe not a smart phone, I'd like to think he would see trolling the internet or playing games on a phone as a waste of time.   To tweet or not to tweet?

     To help me with the structure and formatting of a playscript I read Naked Playwriting by William Missouri Down and Robin U. Russin.   This book is worth placing high on your shelf, it covers everything from writing a play to the submission process, theatre etiquette, contract dealings, rehearsals and the final production.   This book contains advice from master playwrights such as Chekhov who wrote; “If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.” Naked Playwriting also put into words what I feel most writers love about writing, why they are compelled to do it; “Through dialogue we reveal our characters, tell the story, push our point of view and say what we would have said, if we'd been fast enough and cleaver enough to think of it when we had the chance.   For the playwright, it's never too late to find the right words.”   I couldn't agree more with this statement.   If plays and movies are a way for people to step outside of their lives briefly, than being a writer is the ultimate escape; you are creating your own reality.   That is the kind of power dreams are made of, it is what everyone wants.

First, you must have a story you are eager to tell but is also best suited for the stage.   It has to do with the scope of the story.   Some questions you might want to ask are:

• Is this a character driven story?

• Are the main characters people the audience can identify with in some way and will they find them entertaining?  

• Can this story be told with only a few characters and even fewer location?

When it comes to that second question, it should be clear that the audience does not need to like all of your main characters, but they must understand why they act the way they do and that should feel natural given who the character is.  After thinking about the story I wanted to tell and proceeding to outline it beat by beat, I was confident that Anxiety would be a good fit for the stage.

Anxiety is about a manic-claustrophobic woman who gets locked inside a bathroom after hours at the office building she works at.

      To make thinks interesting, I put a male character trapped in there with her, a janitor who went in to clean the place.  Much like the play and film adaptation of Sunset Limited, these are two worlds colliding, two people who are very different from each other who are forced to overcome an obstacle together.   In this case, not only are these people of different backgrounds and classes but they are of opposing genders.  A man and a woman together in a bathroom, not a common scenario to say the least.

      Part of the research for this play was inspired by true events.   On Friday night, December, 6^th 2013 Karen Perrin was locked into the bathroom at her place of employment for reasons that remain a mystery.   The way she responded was very interesting and received a great deal of news coverage. Whatever is needed to inspire you as a writer and spark your interest go out and find it.   And then write, keep writing until the first draft is done.   That last part, following through is what separates the professional writer from the well meaning hobbyist.

I have just finished Anxiety, so the future of this playscript is uncertain, but what matters is that I finished it and will make each draft better than the last.

PLAYWRITING RESOURCES: 

• The Dramatists Guild
• The Dramatists Guild Resource Directory
• Insight for playwrights

Curt Wiser is a filmmaker and published author.  He has written suspense novels and articles for Indie Slate Magazine.

ON THE STAGE

I take the stage and hope for the best.   The wooden floor is worn out from over a decade worth of shows. The lights shine bright from a catwalk above.   Performers stomp around and direct members of the audience who are invited on stage.   The actors fill the room with their mock enthusiasm and false urgency.   It is all for the sake of entertainment.  I am there doing my part.           I am not an entertainer, yet I can inspire laughter and applause all the same.      I am the guy behind the camera.

Among the others on stage, I move and frame the action with a steady hand.   Timing is everything, the sights and sounds of the show follow the rhythm of my movements.   Every show is the same, yet they are all different.   The actors and camera operators find ways to make the show their own, you have to, it makes your shows mean something, to you if not anyone else.   This is a dance, a test of reflexes and instincts.

I quickly learned the style and flow of each actor and react to capture the moment in the best possible way.   At least that is the hope each time out.   There is no time to second guess yourself and as soon as you reset the stage after one show, a new one begins.   It is cycle, like each passing night that brings a new dawn.   Above the stage is a large screen that lets the crowd see everything that passes through my lends.   Maybe they're watching or maybe they're not, but the dance continues and the show must go on. 

 

 

 

Curt Wiser is the writer-director of the thriller Cam-Girl (aka Web-Cam).  His writing has been published in Indie Slate Magazine and he is an author of suspense novels. 

DVD REVIEW: PARADISE

Leave it to the award winning screenwriter of Juno to write a comedy about a burn victim. Paradise is about Lamb, a highly sheltered young woman who was raised under strict religious values by her family in small town in Montana. A traumatic plane crash leaves most of her body severely burned, she later gets a large settlement of money from suing the plane manufacturer. The movie begins with lamb announcing that she will not give any of her new found riches to the church as originally planned but will go out to Las Vegas and start to enjoy life. When she arrives at sin city Lamb become friends with a female lounge singer, (Octavia Spencer) and an amorous British bartender (RussellBrand). Together they help Lamb check off things from her “Bucket List of Sin” in the city that never sleeps.

I must be clear that I am a Diablo Cody fan, I have been since the beginning when she wrote her novel Candy Girl, about her experiences as a stripper. What makes Paradise unique is that this is the first feature Diablo Cody wrote and directed. I had to check this movie out and watched it keeping that in mind. This movie, Paradise was made on a lower budget then the previous films she wrote. It was shot digitally, not on film but I feel this did not take anything away from the story because it was so funny and well written.

The witty dialogue in this film is what you would expect from Diablo Cody. It is the kind of humor that makes you laugh and then laugh louder when you think about it more. This writer's use of voice over is also a strong element. Cody said that this voice over was an after thought, conceived while they were editing. This narration helped carry us through the story, I am glad they added it. By the time I reached the films ending it was clear that this movie was more than just your run of the mill comedy. Diablo Cody paid attention to every detail, she foreshadows things nicely and it shows.

How well did this accomplished screenwriter do as a director? The movie looked good and showed off a different side of Las Vegas. The camera movement was motivated and supported what was going on in the scene, something first time directors can have trouble with. In a recent KCRW radio interview Diablo Cody said that being a full time mother and a director was too much, that she does not want to direct again. She did a great job. Maybe someday when her kids are older she will changer her mind and take the director's chair again. If Paradise is any indication, her fans will still be there. I know I will.

Hear the KCRW radio interview with the writer-director Diablo Cody.

 

Watch the Paradise trailer.

 

If you like my writing, please check out my suspense novel Box Cutter Killer which is priced to sell for the Kindle and the Nook. 

 

I am also the writer-director of the thriller Cam-Girl which will be released in early 2014. 

DVD REVIEW: Before Midnight (2013)

Chick flick. The term comes with some bad connotations and strikes fear into the hearts of boyfriends the world over. I know that I am not a fan of most of these movies, only because they tend to be as flat and predictable as a scratch and sniff book.

There are some exceptions to this, Before Midnight is one of them. This is the third film that centers around two characters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). Before Sunrise [1995] shows how they first meet and fall in love as they stroll around the streets of Vienna. The second film, Before Sunset [2004] reunites these characters years later under circumstances that create a blend of love and loss. Before Midnight is a bold and beautiful film that shows what a real long term relationship is all about. We get to see this couple nine years later while they are both on vacation at Greece. Are these two love birds happy? Yes and no, because this movie is like real life, things are complicated. They have twin daughters and Jesse is divorced but this couple is still dealing with the consequences. Each of them have their own responsibilities and jealousies.

What makes these three films unique is that this is a patient franchise. These movies are made almost a decade apart from each other, the characters mature at the same rate as the actors who portray them. This is a far cry from the shotgun fantasy franchises that they film at the same time just to make more money. Just as important is the fact that Hawke and Delpy share screenwriting credit with the filmmaker, Richard Linklater. It comes as no surprise that these actors give amazing performances as these two characters which they have co-authored. They chose Greece as the setting before they wrote the script which shows in how effectively they use each location.

One thing that separates Before Midnight from the two earlier films was the amount of time we see this couple interacting with other people. The diner scene for example surrounds Celine and Jesse with people that remind them of where they used to be as a couple and informs them about what may lie ahead. If you want to see what good writing and acting looks like, this diner scene is it.

Before Midnight lets me recommend one of these so called chick flicks. So curl up with your loved one, or your pillow if you have to and watch this film trilogy.



- Curt Wiser is the Author of the suspense novel Box Cutter Killer and the Writer-Director of the feature film Cam-Girl.     

Before Midnight on IMDB.




 

WHY EVERY WRITER SHOULD HAVE A BLOG:

A writer writes, plain and simple.  Yes we read, seek out new experiences and research or do whatever is needed to prepare for our next writing project but above all it is about pounding away as those keys, crafting the sentences and emotions for readers to enjoy all over the world.   Blogging has become a perfect way for writers to flex their muscles and write anything they want without the pressure of intending to have it read by publishers or producers.   Blogging is also fun because it is writing in short form without the standard formatting expectations that a novel or screenplay should have.

 

Things that are unique make a blog

stand out but would be frowned

upon in other forms of writing.

 

 

Blogging is a quick and easy free exchange of ideas.   One interesting example of this was HackingNetflix.com, a consumer advocacy blog lunched in November 2003 about news items, service features and methods of operation for the movie rental start up NetFlix.   This blog became an undeniable sounding board for customers' opinions as Netflix engaged in a war of attrition with Blockbuster Video, the rental giant of the time.   This blog was reported to be the source that Blockbuster execuives used to study NetFlix's distribution centers as they prepared to start up Blockbuster's online rental service.  With the 10,000 monthly visitors who habitually read this blog, it had the ability to and in fact did cause changes in NetFlix's policies.

In September of 2011 HackingNetflix.com posted news about the companies plans to divide the DVD rental service into a new company called “Qwikster” so you would have to make two different payments and search two websites if you wanted DVD and streaming content.  Most of the customers who replied to these blog posts criticized this idea heavily and a large number of NetFlix subscribers canceled their accounts.   The powers that be at Netflix decided not to divide up these services due to public outcry.

 

Back in 2004 NetFlix put a customer support phone number back up on their web site after HackingNetflix.com posted that it was taken which spurred customer outrage and got attention in the press.  You can read more about all this in Gina Keating's book Netflixed.  I recommend this book, it was an interesting read.

A blog is also a great way to promote yourself as a writer and build a readership, just ask Brook Busey-Hunt. Who is that you might ask? She is better known under the pen name of Diablo Cody. Before she burst into the scene with her academy award winning screenplay Juno, Brook wrote a blog about her experiences working as a stripper. Talent manager Mason Novick was one of the many male readers who no doubt stumbled upon her blog. Novick contacted her and convinced her to expand her blog entries into a non-fiction novel, a memoir which was published with the title of Candy Girl. This well written novel started Diablo Cody on her career path that led to the level of success she now enjoys. Check out Candy Girl, it shows that Diablo Cody's voice and writing talent was there from the beginning.

It is for these reasons that I started blogging once I was fortunate enough to find a distributor for Cam-Girl, a feature I wrote and directed and wrote on novel adaptation which is titled Box Cutter Killer. This blog is a great way for me to get the word out about the independent films that inspire me and share bits of advise to writers and filmmakers just like me.

So why should a writer blog? The only question now should be what to write for your next blog post.

GUIDE FOR MAKING BONUS MATERIALS FOR YOUR MOVIE

Special features or value added content as film distributors often call it are a great thing to have.   These elements can be packaged with the home video release of your movie. Whether it is a DVD, Blu-Ray or Holo-Disk (I made that last one up), this will give consumers a reason to buy your movie instead of renting it through video on demand or downloading it illegally.  It often makes a difference to me as I look at all of the options up on the DVD rack. Making a feature film is a lot of work, so why not spend a little more time to make your movie more appealing to retailers and the eager movie watching public.

That is why I knew bonus materials needed to be made for Cam-Girl, my first feature which I wrote and directed.   Producers and filmmakers should just plan ahead for this the same way they make sure promotional stills are taken during the production.  On high budget movies they interview the actors during the long stretches of down time while the Director Of Photography makes sure the lighting is perfect.   I interviewed one of the actors, Bjorn Jiskoot Jr. while the two leads were going over their lines. At the end of one of our days I asked our make-up artist, Sarah Okun a few interesting things about her job as she was cleaning her brushes.   None of our production time was wasted.   Months after we wrapped on the movie, I took the opportunity to interview our two lead actors Erin Nicole Cline and Joe Coffey when they came in for an ADR session.

We also had about 30 minutes worth of video I shot on the set.   I left the behind the scenes camera running while we shot an action sequence.   It helps to have a camera that is only used for behind the scenes filming so you can get footage of the camera and crew. People like seeing this objective point of view, it really helps re-create the feeling of being on set.

This footage was all used by the editor of the movie, Curtis Norton to create an entertaining behind the scenes documentary which is 30 minutes long.   The last thing I recorded was an interview of myself as the writer-director. This was after everything else was edited so I was able to fill the gaps and elaborate on things said in the other interviews.   I also recorded a writer-director commentary for Cam-Girl which was so much fun since I have been listening to every commentary I could get my hands on over the years.   Commentary is the easiest bonus feature to produce but there are two rules for making commentary worth listening to.

• Do not comment on what we can see with our own eyes or know just from watching the movie.   We don't need you telling us this is the scene where the character does this or that.

• Silence is deadly, just like in radio. So please do not stop and watch your movie.   I know it's your baby, it is hard not to but just don't do it. 

Look out for the home video release of the thriller Cam-Girl, which will be packed with special features. 

 

FOR MORE UNFORMATION ON Cam-Girl visit www.webcamthefilm.com

 

BUY THE NOVEL ADAPTATION OF CAM-GIRL FOR KINDLE HERE.

 

ALSO AVAILABLE FOR THE NOOK AND ON PAPERBACK.