Tag: Story

The Force Awakens…. Lost its way….

Posted on by CV Whitfield

As I stated, the movie started out with lots of potential. Yet, it didn’t know what it wanted to be. The writer and director didn’t create a natural extension of the Skywalker story. Instead, they created a story and production they thought the audience wanted. Or to be more precise, what the producer thought the audience wanted.

So, the new leadership at Lucasfilm decided to nix everything in the expanded universe. A horrible idea to millions of fans that spent decades enjoying the stories and respecting the chronology. But a fabulous idea for a new writing staff so they don’t have to worry about the past and all thats come before it. Or as I really think, they didn’t have a clue of any of that source material and like a slacker high school student, why actually read the book and know the material when you can just petition the teacher to throw out the textbook altogether. Yes, I am calling out those writers for not actually being SW fans and actually knowing the chronology. When you have a clean canvas you can create anything without remorse or worry.

As story development proceeded, The Force Awakens could literally be anything the writers could dream up. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that it fit in with the previous movies, character developement nor even the wishes of Mr. George Lucas. He handed treatments over yet Lucasfilm leadership decided to toss them and proceed with the what the rockstar director wanted.

Story may be the weak link but the saving grace was the art design and characters that were created. Except I think they needed a slight tweak….

Up next… a fan’s version of The Force Awakens….

0

Where’s the Coffee Machine?!

Posted on by CV Whitfield

And, so we stood, confused and dazed.  The coffee machine was missing!  This happened early on a Monday morning.  The coffee machine was the one thing we all looked forward to on a Monday morning – it made the stay in the office tolerable.  It was a miracle of modern technology – it dispensed black coffee; decaf coffee; coffee mochas; cappuccino; hot chocolate; lattes; and hot water.    Some of us even were rumored to worship the coffee machine.  The area around it was a social hangout.  We told stories about our weekends in front of the coffee machine; we discussed the reports in front of the coffee machine; we shared photos of our kids around that freaking coffee machine –  the machine was part of our family.  There was always a line – most of us standing with empty mugs in hand.  We needed it to get the extra wake-up juice that the day required.  There we stood, in disbelief.  Jack Eden had already called building security to report it stolen.   When the security guard finally arrived to take our statements, the management staff strolled up and tried to get us to disperse. 

A few weeks before we all learned we were moving cubicles, again.  Management brought it upon itself to suspend the funding to the coffee machine.  Budget reports showed that it was a huge red line in the bottom line and somewhere the management staff had to decided that the only way to fix it was to have it removed.  No concern was taken on how this would effect the employees or our morale.  The situation  started to get ugly.  Tempers started to flare.  Tensions were rumbling on every floor of the building.  We took it upon ourselves to send emails to anyone who would listen.  The story goes, that even the CEO was aware of the musings of mutiny.  He quickly placed a note on his blog, on the company’s homepage on our intranet – to dispel rumors and sweet talk the employees with his boyish charisma.  The seasoned workers like Rick and Jack saw through the lies and deception.  Rick and Jack spent the rest of the day calling the coffee machine vender and other coffee wholesalers.  Their daily reports and emails went ignored.  The two men worked up spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations and pie charts on the expenses on a company providing the simple life blood of coffee to its employees.  Jack had even called the exact technician that removed the machine.  With a day’s work and math, they came to the conclusion it only cost the company about $10 a day to give 1000s of cups of bold, hot, stimulating coffee to its legion of cubicle prisoners.   

After days of buying coffee from the Starbucks from down the street, the group decided to pitch in for a coffee machine and coffee.   It took several days before building management discovered our bootleg coffee pot.  We were instructed to remove it.  We asked, “why, we’re paying for it out of our own pockets?”  The building management’s excuse was “it’s a fire hazard and the building couldn’t accept the liability.”  That excuse had us scratching our heads – once again – for hours.  How could our machine be a fire hazard yet the one that sat there just days before – for years and years – was not? Did they know the liability of disgruntled employees?

Production had already slipped by 37%. The writing was on the wall. Yes, several uncontrollable naps would happen. Concentration would be lost to staring at cubicle walls for hours at a time. But most importantly, the tine it took for 87% of the staff to walk 1.5 blocks to the Starbucks, waiting precisely 8.6 minutes to order their drink, waiting another 12.7 minutes to get drink, and then walk slowly back the 1.5 blocks back to the building. Before the coffee machine was 20.7 feet away. Now it caused this reckless behavior and loss of production.  It made no sense whatsoever! 

If we were to keep our freshly installed coffee machine, we were gonna have to take it to the mattresses – and bribe a few fire inspectors!

0

And So We Stood

Posted on by CV Whitfield

And, so we stood, watching Mary Sela cut into a glazed doughnut.  The doughnut was still in the box from the little doughnut shop from around the corner – The Donut Hole.  Using a plastic knife in a rigorous sawing motion, she promptly removed an expertly cut half a doughnut.  She placed it on a paper towel and walked back to her cubicle.  We stood there wondering if anyone else would courage up to taking the other half of the doughnut.  

Jack Eden decided he didn’t want to ponder the idea. He yelled, “Mary!” As she turned around with a “yeah”, he questioned her with a “what the hell was that?”  Her eyebrows scrunched down into an inquisitive “what?”  He approached her and asked her why she only took half a doughnut.  She quietly responded that she didn’t want a whole doughnut.  “So, you figure someone wants your discarded half of a doughnut?” he grilled.  She stumbled on her words, looked over his shoulder at the rest of us, and in a passive voice “I didn’t want to waste it.”  Jack didn’t care what her best intentions were, nor did any of us think we would happily dine on half-a-doughnut still in the box from the little doughnut shop from around the corner – The Donut Hole.  

First off, we didn’t get free doughnuts very often, especially those bought and paid for by our management staff.  Secondly, we weren’t exactly concerned about our pride when it came to gorging ourselves on free food.  So to witness such an odd event, we found ourselves scratching our heads.  Even after Jack interrogated Mary.  And wouldn’t you know, that half-a-doughnut sat in the box even after all the others were gone.  Pillaging free food still had its requirements and it didn’t involve scraps. We weren’t heathens.  We weren’t vagabonds. We weren’t animals.  We were highly educated morons that sat in tiny cubicles all day, shifting through emails, answering phone calls from whiny brokers, and ‘servicing’ our clients – although no one liked that term – it just sounded perverse.            

The half-a-doughnut was still in the box when everyone had gone home for the day and the lights were turned out.  It sat in the box, from the doughnut shop around the corner – The Donut Hole, on the green table, in the green kitchen, through the night.  The green table, in the green kitchen was also known as the table where discarded food went to disappear – if someone had leftovers or excess amounts of Halloween candy, it was placed on the green table. Within a few days (sometimes only hours), it would be gone.  It defied explanation.  The phenomenon wasted hours of useful production time as we discussed the theories and probabilities of how the food disappeared. Maybe the Dining Hall manager suspected contraband and had it disposed of? Or, maybe the Health Relations Monitor saw a potential food poisoning event and quickly bagged and tagged it for analysis. Maybe, the table actually had a trap door where the food would fall through a maze of tunnels and passage ways and fall right into the incinerator? In the end, we suspected it was simply eaten.  We hoped the cleaning crew just took care of it each night.  Yet, this was disproven by the half-a-doughnut incident.  The following day, the half-a-doughnut still sat in the box on the green table, in the green kitchen as it was left the day before.  Most of us stared at it as we got our morning coffee and threw our lunches into the refrigerator.

Then, Joey Brena, getting her third cup of coffee that morning, noticed something! The box, from the donut shop from around the corner – The Donut Hole, was open and more importantly, empty. The half-a-donut was gone! Joey raced over to Rick Whitmore’s cubicle to inform him that the half-a-doughnut was now missing.  The box from the doughnut shop from around the corner was still on the table, including crumbs and smears of chocolate icing.  But more importantly, the half-a-doughnut was gone!  Rick Whitmore proceeded to walk to Jack Eden’s cube and inform him of the news.  Before we could even check our voice mails or log in to our emails, we gathered in the green kitchen, near the green table.  We stared at the table, at the box.  

“You think Mary came back to get the other half?” Sandy Johnson hypothesized.

“That’s just ridiculous!” Jack rebutted.

The thing is, someone had to take the half-a-doughnut.  Someone decided it looked appetizing.  It obviously wasn’t thrown away, or why was the box still on the green table, in the green kitchen?  

Jack whispered to Joey Brena he would check on Mary and see if the half-a-doughnut was on her desk or if her sweater revealed the crumbs of evidence.  Mary Sela, a nice fifty-something lady, typically kept her self clean and smelled like cheap Walgreen’s perfume.  But sometimes she had the unfortunate character of clumsiness. Like the time a meatball escape her fork and rolled down a heavenly white blouse – leaving a Morse code of bright red spaghetti sauce in its wake. 

Joe Eden, gone only a couple minutes, returned to inform us that, “She’s not there. Her computer isn’t even booted up.”  We all just looked at each other.  We continued to debate the disappearance of the half-a-doughnut.  What happened to the half-a-doughnut?  Worse yet, did someone eat it?

0

Today’s Word: Patience.

Posted on by CV Whitfield

Hello, boys and girls. Today’s word is patience.

This is something some writers don’t have. Okay. Well, maybe not some. Let’s just say me. I try hard to have it but ….

My head is filled with stories. It’s full of scenes, dialog and … things. I sit and as I write, it flows so much slower. I can spend a full solid morning and only have a few pages to show but in my mind, I’ve seen the beginning, the middle and the end.

So, with the patience comes focus. With that head so full of stories and ideas, its hard to stay focused on just one. I easily get something else caught in my imagination and start to document that. And typically, as I’m working on that, a new idea bursts forth.

I’ve learned that patience comes with discipline. To ease the chaos of my mind, I try to satisfy it by working on more than one project at a time. I’ve been asked if that isn’t confusing or difficult. To be honest, not really. But it does do, is: it slows down the process and extends the completion of the story.

So, I’m trying to focus on only 2 or 3 projects. I can rotate as needed but I feel it will help me and my blocks. But its not rigid. If I find that I spend all my time on 1 project, then so be it. And congrats to me. The only benefit to a slow process is that I get to think more about the story. I find places to make changes and fix problems. In the end, maybe thats the reward….

Oh, and with that: I use a notebook to catalog all those new ideas. Let’s just hope I can get to them one day!

0

Star Wars was ruined by, “I am your father!”

Posted on by CV Whitfield

Well, not ruined per se, but it was something the Prequels and the Sequels haven’t been able to live up to. Or perhaps they forgot about it — a key dramatic element of the Original Trilogy.

Everyone remembers the time they first saw that dramatic scene in Empire Strikes Back where Darth Vader tells the young hero Luke Skywalker that he is in fact his father. The shock would plague some of us for nearly 3 years waiting for the release of Return of the Jedi. Yes, I was a kid, 8 years old, back then and saw it in the theater. I’m not sure I even believed it. I figured Vader was lying to Luke just to get him to turn to the Dark Side.

See, I was naive and believed Obi-wan Kenobi when he told Luke that Vader betrayed and murdered Luke’s father. Yet, once I saw ROTJ and the audience got its confirmation that Ben Kenobi lied, I learned a very important dramatic element of story telling. Some call it the “big reveal” or some might say “the redirect”. The goal is to surprise your audience with some information they weren’t expecting. This information is meant to change the dynamic of the characters relationship with one another. Not only providing melodrama but layers of complexity to the story.

Now, when the Prequels debuted in 1999 with The Phantom Menace, we knew this was going to be a story about a young Anakin Skywalker — Luke’s father. But what we didn’t know was how and what drove Anakin to the Dark Side. So millions of Star Wars fans waited and then we were disappointed. Okay, fine, we saw how he fell to the Dark Side, yet George Lucas made it a very long turn. Instead of something dramatic, we were told that Anakin was troubled and manipulated by Palpatine — spending over a decade slowly mind controlling him.

We all have the version of new Star Wars we wanted in our heads. My imagination over 20 years allowed me to think of a few different versions of the prequels. Yet, I know that is the definition of exaggerated anticipation — and there’s no way to be completely satisfied with the result. This is a common affliction in a Star Wars fan. We put too much of our own desires into future stories that we hopelessly know will never become reality. This is why a Star Wars fan can hate and love a movie at the same time.

In my Star Wars, Anakin fell to the dark side in one tragic and dramatic moment. Something very similar to what we saw in his final moment of his fall in Revenge of the Sith. But something much more powerful. I saw him using the Dark Side only to save someone he loved — i.e. the “young queen” (mother of Luke and Leia) but because it truly was the only way to save them. Almost to say, he sacrificed himself to save them. But this isn’t my point. Yet, I mention it as this could have been the “I am your father” moment. And maybe it should have been.

In all aspects of the Prequels, we never got this “reveal” moment. We were never shocked or surprised by the story. It really felt like the three movies were telegraphed to us in a very long exposition of images. I blame George Lucas for not giving us our surprise. Where was “I am your father” in the Prequels? We didn’t get it! Maybe Palpatine should have told Anakin that he was Anakin’s father? Or that Qui-Got was? Something. This is the same thing that happened in the Sequels. We almost had it with the tease on Rey’s parents but then we didn’t get anything. I believe if we had gotten this moment in Attack of the Clones or in The Last Jedi, those trilogies would be inherently better. But then, what do I know….

0

Should I write a Blog Story?

Posted on by CV Whitfield

Should I write a story that is exclusive to this blog? Everyday would be another small part of the overall tale. I would try to keep it serialized and make each small section tantalizing for returning for the next installment.

0

Life Too Slow

Posted on by CV Whitfield

Our lives move so fast that it’s hard to slow down. There’s nothing wrong with going slow. I think it’s something we’ve lost in the evolution of our society.

We have been spoiled to get things now – right now! Today isn’t fast enough. I need it yesterday.

I realized how this impacted me so greatly while tried to each lunch at Steak n Shake yesterday. I had nothing to todo that day. I was calm and patiently waited to be seated. All was good. Our order was taken and I chatted with the wife and daughter. We were having a good time and hadn’t realized that our food hadn’t arrived and it had been 30 minutes. They were busy but we don’t get Steak n Shake often so we went back to talking. Then another 15 minutes passes. Still no food. This got me to thinking. How long is too long to wait for food? These are hamburgers and shakes not made to order steak and lobster ….

So at the 45 minute mark, we got up and walked out. They may not have noticed we left but oh well. Almost feel sorry for that food arriving to an empty table. We crossed the street and had our burritos within 10 minutes.

Is there a life too slow? I do like being able to wake up and just spend the day with no plan of attack. Wasting time doing the fun things — reading or sitting!

0

Bird Box

Posted on by CV Whitfield

From time to time, I’ll see a movie and then I spend hours – (actually) days thinking about it. It doesn’t have any real rhyme or reason behind it. Sometimes they are insignificant films: like Passengers, Baby Driver and Bird Box. And they aren’t like big geek features either. I’m not analyzing it. I’m not trying to figure out a theory of how the Avengers will defeat Thanos and get their friends back. Or why Luke just sat on a rock instead of zooming off in that submerged X-wing. I just replay scenes over and over again in my head. Perhaps, I’m trying to relate to the characters. Or maybe, I’m infatuated with the story. It could just fall under a simple fascination (like the colors in a sunset) to it all. And that, I can’t explain.

If anything, Bird Box kept me hooked. That could be the secret. I was exuberantly  curious to know what happens next. I wanted to know if they would explain the “mystery”. Was it a virus? Was it a mind control weapon? (I won’t spoil anything here). Is this the gimmick to a great story?

It could have been: the premise of the plot is just plain bonkers! A woman and her 2 kids make a long and dangerous journey but must do it blindfolded. The thought of traveling through a forest or down a river; but not able to see where you’re going, is inherently a fear we all have. Is the movie a metaphor for taking risks? Especially in an environment – or activity – that has grave consequences. Am I subconsciously relating this scenario into my writing? I suppose I feel blindfolded in the outcome of this venture. What if no one reads it? What if I can’t find readers to buy it?

In the process of writing this post, I’ve done what I said I don’t normally do. I’m analyzing (over analyzing) the movie. Or more accurately, I’m analyzing myself in context to the it. Not sure which one is more troubling….

0