Gems on Broadcast TV

So a surprisingly unknown fact nowadays is that with an antenna you can get free television!  And in Los Angeles, we get about 50 or so channels over the air, depending on the orientation of our antenna.  In terms of the big networks, as of right now we get NBC, CBS, and Fox.  Still have to figure out the orientation for ABC and CW.  But in addition to those big name tv stations, there's a lot of foreign language television to fill out the remaining 40ish channels.  There's your typical Spanish channels with their novellas.  But then you have some Armenian channels; one's even named "Best TV Programming," so I don't know why I ever change from that channel.

But what I'm getting to is the Asian channels.  I've discovered a kaiju style tv show on what I believe is a Japanese station.  18.1 or 18.2 I think.  If you don't know what kaiju is, think about a Godzilla movie with guys in mnster suits fighting on a miniature city set.  That's kaiju.  It's probably because I grew up on Godzilla and Power Rangers (and I still watch the latter a lot!), but I am hooked on this show now!  I believe it's called Ultraman.  Even though the video quality looks like it's from the later 90s, the effects are horribly cheesy.  There's a lot of alien spaceships chasing down Earth space craft, and the aliens look like 2D paper sketches flying around.  There's no parallax at all!  The human ships look like Arwings from Starfox.  And it's great!

And speaking of Godzilla, when I first tuned in to the show I thought I was watching a series based off of Jet Jaguar, who was a character in a Godzilla movie I watched a ton as a kid.  Sadly, the character was only in that one movie, and Jet Jaguar had no franchise of his own.  But the resemblence is crazy, isn't it?  It makes sense since Ultraman was popular at the time this Godzilla movie came out.

Isn't it kinda funny what you find on tv?

Getting Analog

George Lucas was the forerunner of digital cinema technology.  Think what you want about the Prequel Trilogy, but they did undoubtedly push the frontier of making theatrically released films with digital cameras instead of film.  George Lucas is also infamous for his love of computer-generated imagery.  But despite all his love for technology, whenever he sat down to write out the story he did it on pen and paper.  Kind of weird, isn’t it?  Why would a filmmaker with the best technology in the industry use such analog technology like pen and paper to start of a movie concept?

Well, I think I know why.  I’ve been working on a new feature script for the past few days.  Right now I’m making detailed documents about all of my characters and their backstories, and later I’ll make a number of outlines in more and more detail.  But as I sketch out some of my secondary characters, I stumble on a couple that I have a pretty big and basic problem with.  I need to give these characters a name!  With this movie I’m trying to have meaningful names for the characters that give subtle hints to their personalities.  You know, using the roots of words in other languages and looking up the meanings of names in certain cultures.  So I sit, looking at my computer screen, racking my brain for the right name.  Once I have it, I’ll put it on that pristine Word document right there.

Unsuccessful, I go lie on my bed and brainstorm some more.  Being away from the computer is definitely helping.  Looking at that blinking cursor on the screen is actually a little intimidating, believe it or not.  But away from it now, more names are coming to me.  If only I could WRITE THEM DOWN!  Bingo, that’s it.  Despite all the technology, sometimes writing down ideas with old fashioned pen and paper helps the creative process.  At least for me at that moment it did.  It’s obviously different for each person.  For me, I was having writer’s block on my Word document.  For some reason, the want to write my ideas on pen and paper was not a part of that digital writer’s block.  Maybe that’s why George Lucas wrote on notepads.  Maybe that’s something I should do more too.  Oddly enough, I don’t have any notebooks I can use where I’m at.  But, I think the writer’s block is gone for now.  I’m really just saying that.  After I finish this post, which I’m just using as a distraction from my writer’s block, I go back to racking my brain for that same last character’s name!

Small Town Film Aspirations

Lately I’ve been driving through some small towns here and there while on break.  And while I’ve been doing so, I’ve noticed something: Small towns have so much character!  I’ve been working on some longer scripts lately, and I really want to write something that takes place in Smalltown America somewhere.

It usually helps to be in the passenger seat of a car when driving through a small town.  When you’re driving you end up paying attention to the road, thus missing out on the cool stuff on the side of the street.  I personally notice family owned restaurants and bars and think about what kinds of meetings go on in there.  I start to piece together scenes that could happen.  I imagine my drive past there as the drive two characters might have taken.  And each of these small businesses has a uniqueness that you can’t easily find in bigger cities.

I have family in a small town like the ones I’ve described so far.  The small town community is so interesting and tightly knit.  Everyone knows everyone, and the whole thing about the front door being open is totally true.  Whenever I visit them people really do swing by just to say hi, chat in the living room, and then head back out.  I think that kind of interaction would play well in a scene or story.

And think about how fun it would be to make a movie in a small town!  I find those towns so relaxing and friendly.  In my experience in them so far, it’s much easier to get the permits to film there too.  I once filmed a movie in a small town where we got access to a cop uniform, police car, and various locations in City Hall for free all because everyone in charge was so friendly!

On the other hand, I’ve run into a lot of trouble getting permits for outdoor locations and having to pay huge fees to get said permits in bigger cities.  It would definitely take a lot of the stress out of the filming process.

That said, here’s the problem.  I don’t have an idea for a story yet!  I jot down ideas whenever I think of them, but so far nothing that takes place in a small town setting.  But since I have a few weeks to myself, maybe I’ll think of something.  But whatever I end up writing, I look forward to it!