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Errata

Worst Work-Related Injury

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I thought this might be a fun, albeit gruesome, little bit, and since I have a particularly nasty one, AND am feeling a bit impish, I’ll go first.

The only rule is that it must be work-related. You know, fingers in splints from those 23-hour coding marathons, or compound fractures of the carpal tunnel… that sort of thing.

Here is mine:

I got this while fight choreographing a video for the song “Freya” by “The Sword.” The shoot was a blast. The band was just awesome, truly a great bunch of guys that I wish only the best for, and director Barnaby Roper was a joy to work with.

I arrived on set while the band was shooting their sync shots, so the other actors and I decided to warm up a bit, and just get used to the feel of the weapons.  We had an array of prop weapons, made from plastic and high-density foam, plus one real, live-steel sword that would be the primary character’s weapon.

After a few minutes of moving around the space, one of the over-zealous actors said, “Oh, cool!  A REAL one!”  He grabbed the live-steel sword and began waving it around in a very unsafe manner, sending all of us ducking for cover – literally.  Not wanting to assume leadership, but also not wanting anyone to get hurt, and realizing that I was obviously the only person there with any sort of weapons training, I offered to do a mini stage combat class for everyone’s safety.  This was met with thankful glances from the other actors, and afforded me the opportunity to gain control of the live-steel sword as my weapon.

When we finally began shooting the fight scenes, one of the actors suggested to the director that I be the lead fighter, but he had his eye on another person for that role… the “Oh, cool!  A REAL one!” guy.  I was worried for all of us, but with the work we had done in the class I figured we had handled the proximity issues and learned enough basic safety to get through the shots with no injuries.

After hearing the style and overall story, I offered to choreograph a lengthy battle that could cut as a single shot or be chopped up for impact and pacing.  The director agreed, and I took the actors, now in full armor and equipped with their weapons, out into the parking lot to begin.

It was hotter than hell that day, and we were all sweating profusely, which I figured would help further reduce any chances of injury as the plastic and foam blades would slide easily on our slippery skin.  After putting together a chain where the main fighter kills 8 consecutive enemies in a series of sweeping motions, he comes to the final foe, played by me.  He drops his sword and yanks a spear from the body lying at his feet and charges.  The choreography was set so that he would fake to my leg and as the thrust was moving to its target the spear would glide upward to enter just beneath the chin and exit the back of my head.  A fluid feint with a lethal outcome.  Since we were shooting behind a scrim we could do this such that the track I was working in was five feet upstage of the track he was working in.  The scrim would compress this for the camera and make it look like we were right on top of each other.

With the moves all set we ran the sequence several times at half-speed to make sure everyone knew exactly what they were doing.  It looked great, and I was very proud of it.  For increased safety, and a bit of polish, we decided to run it at full-speed.  As the body count grew, so did the fervor with which the lead actor portrayed his part, turning back into the dangerous sword-flailing “Oh, cool!  A REAL one!” guy from earlier in the day.  As he grabbed the spear and approached me for the final kill, our five feet apart, parallel tracks began to converge, and with great enthusiasm he faked the leg thrust and ran the spear into my arm.

Now, bear in mind that this spear-head is made of very flexible high-density foam, maybe a bit more stiff than your average mouse pad.  But somehow, overcoming the ease of bending, and my very slippery skin, he managed to thrust that seemingly-innocuous blade almost 5 inches up my arm, through the fascia and muscle tissue, stopping at the base of my tricep.

The actor froze, horrified, his face going gray with shock.  I, on the other hand, valiantly, heroically, courageously, looked down at my arm… and cried.  No, actually, I looked down at this six-foot long spear sticking out of my arm, and the first thing that went through my head was, “Wow!  That thing is really in there…”  And then without thinking at all, I reached down and wrenched the thing from my arm, releasing a wave of blood, and drawing shocked gasps from the crowd of people that had now formed.  I think that was when it hit me, and the shock set in.  I slumped against an open tail-gate of a pick-up truck, and one of the other actors rushed over, tearing off his shirt and tying a tight tourniquet just above the wound.  The spear-wielder was muttering, “I am so sorry…” over and over, and then the producer appeared to see what was going.  I was holding it together fairly well, but a wave of nausea washed over as he approached and I swooned a bit.  Then I realized that it was being compounded by the smoke from him nervously puffing on a cigarette.  “Uh, Thom… would you mind putting that out, or moving away for a bit?” I asked.  “Oh SHIT!  I’m sorry…”

Next thing I knew I was in his car rushing to Cedar’s Sinai Emergency Room.  And then the fun began.  I got in very quickly, and when the attending physician heard my story, he looked me directly in the eye and said, “Well why did you take it out?!?!  That would have made a great photograph!”  I needed, and appreciated the humor, which made me feel much better.  I was turned over to a male nurse, a truly MASSIVE Samoan with a similar sense of humor, who proceeded to wash and debride the wound with syringes full of betadine.  I told him that the spear had gone far up my arm, indicating the point where it stopped beneath the flesh, and he responded with, “No way…”  I assured him it did, so he filled a 10cc syringe with betadine, and fitted it with a splash guard.  He then pressed it hard over the wound a jammed the plunger down.  The ENTIRE 10ccs disappeared into the wound and up my arm.  The nurse looked me right in the eye and uttered a heartfelt, “Whoooa…”  He cleaned me up, the doc came in a sewed me up with 10 stitches, and sent me on my way.

Back on the set we managed to get the choreography captured with no more injuries, aside from me bursting two stitches in the final death scene.

That’s mine.  Now, tell me yours!

Errata

The Novel – #2

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In the tech world there is a concept called “analysis paralysis,” which actually commutes to many situations.  Analysis paralysis (in tech terms) is where a project gets so bogged-down that it stalls because of over-analyzing the requirements.  At some point, you have to jump, and, as Nike so succinctly put it, Just Do It.

So it is with writing.  All of the schools of thought, from Aristotle to Egri, Vogler to McKee, teach the STRUCTURE of writing.  How to make a story conform to some set of rules extrapolated from great works of literature, fiction, playwrighting, etc.  Many would-be writers drown in the quagmire of analysis that these techniques mandate, as they attempt to work backwards through the process, analyzing, designing, structuring, then finally TELLING.  Myself included.

As I lay in bed at night, waiting for the Sandman to sweep me away, I use the quiet time (I have two small children so it is about the only quiet time I get :>) to think through the analysis and structure of the story.  As I delved into a particular aspect, in this case what could cause a child to want to kill a parent, my muse struck and revealed a bit of the story to me.  I quickly grabbed my notebook and wrote feverishly for 45 minutes.  Satisfied that I had captured the essence of the inspiration, I re-read what I had written, and that was when it hit me.  I have MANY MANY bits like I had just written.  In Writer’s Boot Camp language, M2 elements (M2 for Movie Moment) are the big set-pieces that make up a story, knit together with the connective tissue of character and plot, and if you consider any movie or story you love, you will find it to be filled with “moments” that reach through the screen or pages and touch you in some way.

This revelation got me thinking, and what I concluded was that I had plenty of M2 elements for at least the first story of this trilogy, and all I needed to do was put them together, and then allow Anne Lamott’s concept of the “Shitty First Draft” to take hold as I filled in the mortar surrounding them.  Then, armed with a “Shitty First Draft,” I could apply my own phrase, “It is far easier to make something better, than it is to make something.”

And that is where I am at right now… assembling the M2 elements along some semblance of a timeline, such that the story to be told is more clear, needing only those stitches of plot and character to tighten it up into something, hopefully, enjoyable.

Errata

The Novel – #1

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I am finally getting around to posting something on my progress/process.  With two little ones and a full-time job, finding time to write is difficult at best.  But I have been doing a lot of the mental work of sorting out storylines, weeding through possibilities, and constructing the pathway along which the tale will travel.

Back when I began the script for “Techgnostica,” I had the notion that there was far more story to tell than just a single movie’s worth.  That made me think of the Wachowski Brothers and their relentless pursuit of positioning “The Matrix” as a trilogy from the very beginning.  And that in turn gave rise to a similar notion for my story.  Now, after much internal debate, and after a good conversation with Tina, I think I have realized that, although I COULD tell this as a single movie, there truly is at least one other story that needs to be told… perhaps two.

So, I will either write an epic novel or a series, and will expect to write a trilogy of scripts for the movie-version.  That is the current plan… as always, this is subject to change… a LOT.  😉

Last night, with this new concept in mind, I was able to sit down and actually outline 3/4 of the story.  It seems that in trying to cut corners and be concise enough to fit into some prescribed structure, I was closing off avenues that needed to be traveled, and this was contributing to the block I have been experiencing.

So, now I am feeling like I can, once again, put pen to paper, and get back to the more obvious form of writing.  In doing so, I have crafted a couple of “sequences” that may play nicely as short stories, and I am wanting to put those up in this blog or somewhere on the site.  But I am concerned with rights violations, and impingement on publishing possibilities, and a variety of other issues.  So, until I get that stuff sorted and understood, I will hold off.

More later…