Just Effing Entertain Me

Instant Mood Medication

Put away your anti-depressants today, Wavers, I have the perfect medicine for you.
You can’t watch it without grinning.

Laughing Baby Video

Because I Love the Onion So

From yesterday’s Onion:

Going to the Tops of Things Still Favored by Nation’s Tourists

NEW YORK—According to a report released Monday by the American Tourism Society, going to the tops of things is still the preferred activity among the nation’s tourists. “Although driving past things and swimming in things have both grown in popularity over the last decade, going to the tops of things still surpasses both by nearly 30 percent,” said ATS president Kimberly Davis, who was careful to point out that the photographing of things was not included in the report, since the near constant occurrence of this activity makes its frequency impossible to calculate. “In 2008, tourists remained committed to standing in long lines at the bottoms of things, paying upwards of $20 to gain access to the tops of those things, and then staring at other smaller, more distant things for a few minutes before descending, often to have funny pictures of themselves drawn incorporating the things in the background.” Davis added that, perhaps as a consequence of the declining economy, the purchasing of miniature representations of the things that tourists enjoy going to the tops of has dropped by 14%.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Writers

Wavers, we are lucky indeed to hear from one of the writers of SHARK SWARM. The Wave-inatrix actually has been a casualty of the development process and I’ve seen it happen to other writers as well. And yet I still wrote a rather snarky bad review of the finished work and for that I apologize for impugning the writers in a rather cavalier manner. So the Wave-iantrix humbly offers my apologies, a cupcake and excerpts of the email I received from the writer in which he explains what went so very wrong and why. Listen and learn.

***

Hi Julie,I’m one of the writers of SHARK SWARM.

SHARK SWARM was an assignment project that I and my writing partner took over a year and a half ago. It was to be a four-hour miniseries with a fairly large budget, and it was scheduled to air on a network other than Hallmark, thus ensuring that we could include a good bit of violent content — after all, it was a killer shark movie – who would ever expect it to end up on Hallmark, right? My partner and I worked night and day for two months, finally turning in a 240-page draft. In the end, we were very happy with it. Our script was a satirical marriage between a Peyton Place-esque small town story and 70s-style “nature run amok” movies. We wrote a series of interconnected three-dimensional characters with motivations and conflicts that were more than just surface traits (a la simple stubbornness), we poked merciless fun at corporate greed as well as blind activism, we wrote huge setpieces that would put the cost somewhere in the 30 million dollar range – pretty high for a miniseries.Then, production began. Actors and crew were hired, executives got involved, and filming commenced. We were involved in the early going during pre-production and helped to smooth out a few things, but as the film rolled, our job was done. A week into it, the budget was lowered considerably, the network deal changed, and Hallmark became the destination. An hour was hacked out of the script by the production crew. Certain big-name actors who’ve been working for years decided to change every single line of their dialogue. Other actors changed their characters entirely. Connective scenes were deleted by the producers, while scenes that we hadn’t written were added. Characters were dropped, subplots disappeared, setpieces were rewritten by producers to make them smaller, logic be damned.

The entire film was restructured in editing, meticulously researched scientific scenes (I visited marine biologists in Monterey and Santa Cruz) were dropped, reshoots were done to change character motivations and plot points, the climax was dropped in favor of a completely retooled and simplified scene that we never would have written. The final cut was a drastically different film than the one we wrote. While maybe fifty percent of our scenes made it in, they were reshaped entirely and often filled with dialogue we didn’t write. Here are a few examples. That toxic dumping thing? Not ours. Our script dealt with offshore drilling that inadvertently uncovered a mineral sheaf with electromagnetic qualities that affected local sharks and sent them into a perpetual feeding frenzy. Those pulse guns? In our draft, they were minor ultrasonic caving devices that were only used in two scenes, not supersecret military weapons. That shark cage sequence? Utterly different in our draft. And that only scratches the surface. Even worse, the final cut, which is twenty-five minutes longer and actually features a few scenes that we ended up liking, was butchered further for the Hallmark showing. So even LESS of our work made it through.

Anyone who goes through the production process knows that it’s often a wonder that ANY script survives remotely intact. Ours was one of the casualties, and the producers themselves know it. That’s the nature of the beast. At the same time, it provided a stepping stone that got us plenty of other work and allowed us a greater deal of control in the process. Since writing SHARK SWARM, we’ve written two television films (one for Spike and one for Lifetime). We’re currently working on a miniseries for one of the Big 3 networks and a feature film for one of the best actors in the business. We’ve got a career now.SHARK SWARM was our first produced credit, and we’re still quite proud of our script, despite its vast difference from the finished product.

***

And that, Wavers, is a great response. My worry, Shark Swim writers – is that aspiring writers will view this type of finished product and think that it’s then okay to write scripts with gaps of logic, etc., not being aware that in actuality, the script was probably quite good and that the production may not be a representation of what is on the page.

I must say, I thought Assante’s dialogue was really good – did that stay intact? He was smarmy and insincere but quite articulate and the interspersed speeches about “neighbors” and “solidarity” were fantastic. So again, cupcakes for the Shark Swim writes for taking a moment to add to the conversation and my apologies for being snarky about something that must have been a frustrating experience.

Shark Swarm

…so a series of undisclosed events led the Wave-inatrix to plunk herself in front of Hallmark’s scintillatingly titled – Shark Swarm. Wavers, there is hope for all of us.

First of all – Armand Assante. Have you seen this guy’s IMDB? Has anybody made a living off of the sleazy-mean-looking-guy like Assante?

SPOILER ALERT: If you like, seriously care to know what happens (badly) in Shark Swarm, stop here and go warm your cockles over a cuppa java.

***

So Shark Swarm is about this Armand Assante who is trying to buy up this tiny town (Mendocino in reality but charmingly and cleverly named Full Moon Bay. Get it? Like Half Moon Bay?! Oh the hilarity!) and ONE guy, the Duke’s of Hazzard’s John Schneider (the stubborn fisherman married to a very botoxed Daryl Hannah) just won’t budge. And the other townsfolk are all for selling but that’s because they didn’t read their contacts, as John Schneider – who really has aged nicely – points out.

So anyway. Turns out this Assante dude? Yep – he’s dumping toxic waste in the bay which is killing the fish, making it a sucky living for the fisherman/townspeople, making the offer to buy their little Mendocino-Morro-Half-Moon-Bay-Town very attractive. Get it?

So nicely-aged John Schneider (flaw: stubborn) consults with his brother – a marine biologist – who used to study sharks! – anyway, they consult about the fishing situation, Assante and, apparently, some kind of great hair texturizer immune to salt spray and together they consult with F. Murray Abraham, the super duper professor of the local University – in this tiny Full Moon Bay community with one main street. So together, Schneider, his brother, the professor, Daryl Hannah and the hot EPA chick who has just come into town and makes major doe-eyes at the brother – well – they realize that because Assante has been dumping waste in the bay which killed the fish – sharks don’t have their usual prey, so they are acting erratically because they are starving and swarming in huge, aggressive numbers – just off the coast! And F. Murray Abraham has this like – sonar device on his computer and he can see the shark swarms, represented by a fuzzy green cloud on his computer screen. I’m not sure how the sonar worked, either that the sharks are implanted with something to make that them visible as neon green clouds on sonar – or it’s that Abraham might have turned the dial the other way seen only swarms of Marlin. It’s Hallmark movie logic. Don’t fight it.

And oh yeah – Daryl Hannah and Schneider have this cute, 18 year-old blonde Chelsea Clinton lookalike daughter and I’m watching this movie and I notice the girl wears the same dress during the scenes set to take place over three consecutive days. Hello – WARDROBE!?!

Oh also – yes, you may have been wondering – so the visual on the Impossible-Sonar-Device mentioned earlier is of great swarms of sharks headed RIGHT FOR the blighted Full Moon Bay. Because, as the professor said earlier – the bay has been blighted, so the sharks have been swarming within it to find food because they are confused and starved. And yet the sonar shows sharks arriving from the open ocean to head INTO the blighted area to look for food. Because they can smell the – blight? Lack of food? Also good to note: all the OTHER fish have died because of the toxic waste – but not the sharks. Just FYI. Because sharks have super anti-toxic-waste powers. C’mon you marine biology slackers, get it together.

And – I have to also mention, before the midpoint of this sleeper 3 hour movie, about 8 townsfolk have been picked off by the sharks. And yet no one is ever mentioned missing or, um, washed up missing their left leg. We see it, but the townsfolk do not react. Which causes A LOT of tension when nobody in the movie is scared, let me tell you!

The professor introduces a super-duper-pulsar-stun-gun. When you aim and fire it at sharks? You like fry their electro-sensory hunting skills. And it’s a super-secret weapon the Navy (or NASA, can’t remember) has developed. But this professor in Full Moon Bay (population 432 by the looks of it) has got some of these stun guns. Because. He needs them. When he lectures about the environment. You – Waver in the back – pipe down already!

But Assante’s slimy henchman kidnaps Hannah! And Schneider! And Schneider’s crewman, Clint! He puts them all on a boat and races to sea. And the sharks are swarming! They approach another boat -Ha – the bad guy says – ha! It’s all over now! I’m going to say you tried to ram my boat with your boat, but then you’re so stupid you blew a hole in your boat and drowned and nobody will suspect me and my boss Assante! We will buy your property! We will develop the town! So a struggle ensues and poor Clint gets shot and dies but not before in his dying breath, he wonders if Schneider feels lucky today. Anyway, more struggle then the bad guy suddenly has a new plan – he puts Schneider and Hannah in a shark cage and hoists them over the swarming water. Ha – he says – ha! If you get out of the cage, the sharks will eat you. If you can’t get out, the sharks will bust in and eat you! I’ll still get away with it! Though now I have two missing persons, a banged up shark cage and an empty, floating boat to explain. Ha- he says – ha! I’ve seen CSI – they’ll never piece it together!

An action scene ensues in which this risky, cinéma vérité is employed:

–Bad guy girlfriend is in the hold of the boat carrying kidnapped passengers to their imminent, unsuspicious deaths. She pours champagne in anticipation of her triumph.

–Schneider and bad guy struggle up on the deck.

–Girlfriend downstairs, champagne glasses in hand, hears the struggle

–Back up on deck, the guys are wrestling for control

–Below decks, the girlfriend puts the champagne glasses on the shelf

–Above decks – the struggle continues

–Suddenly, the girlfriend shows up with a gun

I just think that for me, without seeing the girlfriend put down the glasses, I would not have believed she could have gotten on deck in this like, 26 horsepower boat fast enough. So – good detailed direction there. So. You know.

But – shark cage it is. Champagne glasses are for suckers.

Even though the CGI sharks – what looks to be a mixed school of hammerheads and great whites – are swarming straight for them, Schneider and Hannah bust out of the shark cage, use the stun gun and rise to the surface to take over the boat. But it was a pretty nail-biting sequence. No, I mean really – it was. Yup.

While the denizens of Full Moon Bay are innocently enjoying the ocean’s bounty – a GIANT swarm of sharks is headed straight for them! But NO – the swarm splits up into three groups – one headed straight for a group baptism, one headed straight for the opening of the new pier with Assante officiating, and one is headed straight for the beach where Schneider’s Chelsea-Clinton-lookalike daughter is swimming!

The swarm is coming, what to do!! The pastor leads the congregation into the water fully clothed. And his dialogue goes something like this: We’re all here. Being baptized. As a big-ass group with no actual symbolic reason, anniversary or point that I mention. On the pier slimeball Assante is making a smarmy speech – and the sharks are swarming toward them! At Pigseye Point, the daughter and her new cute boyfriend who supports that she wants to go to college are surfing – and the sharks are racing toward them!

The sharks are swarming on three beaches. And we have three people: Schneider, his marine biologist brother and Hannah (seriously – the botox). Okay – they decide – three beaches, three of us, three coincidental events and – let’s GO SAVE THE PEOPLE!! They all start for their respective cars to race to the respective beaches when – hey, Schneider shouts to Hannah – don’t forget this! She turns. He holds out a stun-gun-thing – you use this. You point it at the sharks and it stuns them. Oh! Okay! Hannah says and returns to her regularly scheduled heroic race to the beach to do – what? What did she think the plan was before they handed her the super-duper stun gun?

Baaaaaaaarghgh. I think I feel a vein getting ready to burst. And just so you know, happy ending – bad guy gets eaten by a shark, all the happy couples gather on the beach, burp water and pat each other on the backs aaaaaaaaaannnnnnd sky shot.

Oh – what’s this – no, we’re not done! We cut to another sequence – it’s the brother! And his new EPA girlfriend who turned up somewhere in the first act – they are scuba diving. What’s that?! Sharks? Nooooo…they’re manta rays you silly! The end.

But it wasn’t all bad. Remember Clint the incidental crewman who died? In the end – give me a minute – in the end, Schneider and his daughter’s new surfer-dude boyfriend are painting a new name on the back of his fishing boat. Clint’s Courage. I’m sorry – I’m verklempt.

Oh Wavers. The humanity.

Disclaimer: I don’t want to hear from a single Waver that movies like Shark Swarm give bad writing the green light. This is a terrible excuse and a very bad idea. If anything, movies like Shark Swarm raise the bar. Yeah – you heard me right. I used to say to people, when discussing a horrible movie (tv or big screen) that got made – hey, I wish I wrote it! That way I’d have made a sale – who cares about the quality! But you know what, Wavers – no, I do not wish I’d written that movie or any substandard movie – I’d rather write The Savages or Juno or Michael Clayton. And I’d rather wait a good long time to sell something like that than something like Shark Swarm any day of the week. No disrespect to the Shark Swarm writers but you know, I aspire to more and I think that goes for all of us.

Getting to Know Me

Call it heat-induced narcolepsy, call it end-of-week laziness, but the Wave-inatrix just couldn’t seem to motivate today. But I owe something to my Wavers today, do I not? Who else provides mildly entertaining sort-of-education while you are at work? So here is an interview Christina Hamlett (Could it be a Movie: How to Get Your Ideas From Out of Your Head and Up on the Screen) did of me for American Chronicle this last April. I think you will find it scintillating. Or at least way better than that report due today by 5pm. By that measure, almost anything is scintillating, isn’t it?

***

There´s a funny scene in Shakespeare in Love in which a boatman – upon recognizing the young Bard as his passenger – eagerly tries to foist a new script on him. As anyone who has lived in Los Angeles for more than 10 minutes can attest, it´s an accurate send-up of the fact that almost every valet, waiter and clerk you encounter will just happen to have an extra copy of his or her latest project if they overhear you have any connection to Tinseltown. (“Here´s the Cobb salad you ordered, Ms. Hamlett, along with 10 side pages of my horror script about mutant lamprey eels.”)

While no one can fault their unabashed enthusiasm (the writers, that is, not the eels), many of them could benefit from a session of insider knowledge on how today´s script-selling game really works. Julie Gray, founder of The Script Department, serves up her views on how to break in to this elusive market.

Let´s start out with some background on your love of movies and how you came to launch The Script Department.

I have loved movies since I was a little girl and The Wizard of Oz was on television once a year. I don´t know if it´s an odd gene or something, but I fell in love with movies like South Pacific, Oliver! and Pillow Talk. I loved the glamour, the stars, the way everything was dramatized and larger than life. (I lived in a very rural community which might have had something to do with it.) My grandmother was a stage actress in Boston and I think I inherited my love of film and theater from her. When I was in high school, my best friend and I wrote, directed, starred in, produced, edited and exhibited many fine films using our Super 8 camera and allowance money. We did everything from horror to game shows to a sci-fi fantasy with fake little Styrofoam jet fighters.

After graduating from The Writer´s Boot Camp in Santa Monica, I began working as a reader for several high-profile production companies here in town. Over time, it began to break my heart to be so brutal to the scripts. There´s just not a lot of nuance in a “pass”. So often I saw scripts that had great intentions but that just didn´t deliver, particularly on the premise. I know just how hard it is to be writing feature scripts in such a tough spec market. Writers need encouragement and inspiration as much as they need the cold, hard truth about what is not working. I came to realize that how you work with a writer can either open the creative doors or shut them down. I decided to start a company that not only provided great notes but provided those notes in such a way that each writer was respected as a unique individual, no matter where they were on the curve. I wanted to really interact with writers and help them not only become better writers but to also feel empowered in the process. You don´t see a lot of that in a town that historically doesn´t have much respect for writers.

How many people work with you in analyzing new projects?

Gosh, we have grown so much I have to take a minute to answer that. There are two Script Department partners, Andrew and Margaux, and I have three other readers who work pretty much full time. Then I have a few go-to readers if I have overflow beyond that. And we also have some “boutique” services offered by such giants as Christopher Keane. I´m very careful about who I choose to work with. I have always held a very clear vision of our objectives and every story analyst who works with me holds the same vision of integrity, kindness, honesty and encouragement because we are all writers and we´ve weathered the slings and arrows.

What is the breakdown of charges and what can clients expect to get for their money?

We offer everything from Story Notes, which is $400 and you get an hour phone consultation after you´ve received 5 pages of notes, down to logline and query letter evaluation which is $75 and everything in-between. We try to tailor our services to the unique needs of writers. Probably our most popular service is the 3-reader package where three of us read your script and get you 1.5 pages of notes. So the writer gets three opinions and three takes. That one flies off the virtual shelf!

We launched a screenwriting competition this year, called The Silver Screenwriting Competition. We´re doing this competition in the same spirit as The Script Department, holding that vision of writers really benefiting from their relationship with us. The Grand Prize is pretty generous and my favorite part of it – beyond the $2500 in cash, beyond the free trip to LA, beyond the day of meetings with 3 managers – is cocktails with Blake Snyder at the Chateau Marmont. How incredible is that? I´m tagging along, for sure!

The Rouge Wave is a hilarious component of your website! Tell us how this flirtation with silliness and mirth came about.

Oh, thank you. The Rouge Wave is definitely a labor of love. I don´t flirt with silliness, I am silliness. My business partners really have so much patience! What can I say, I´m a Scotch/Irish redhead and we like to laugh.

And again, returning to something that I said earlier and the motto that Mary Poppins lived by, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. When we can laugh and be silly, we open ourselves up to learning. So the Rouge Wave is a very silly and yet very informative place. I run little short scene competitions a few times a year and gosh, let me tell you, I´ve gotten some good stuff!

What do you feel is the most unique about what The Script Department has to offer its clients?

Our attitude and intention. We take our time with each client and we pour ourselves into it, heart and soul. You wouldn´t believe the gifts and cards we get each month. It makes me choke up sometimes; wine, candy, chocolate – I even got a boomerang from an Australian client! I have clients offer me their homes for vacation – I mean, who does that? I like to think that we receive what we put out there to our clients. Working with The Script Department is like working with friends who get you feeling comfortable and relaxed and then tell you the truth about your work so that you can raise your potential as a writer.

On average, how many projects do you receive per month and, of these, how many sparkle with potential?

We get between 20 and 50 scripts per month. Sometimes more. Of that number, I´d honestly say maybe every couple of months we see a script that really blows us away and those we do submit to various managers. In terms of potential, we probably see perhaps 3 or 5 a month that, while in need of work, do have potential because of a unique premise and/or because the writer really has a great “voice”.

What are the three biggest mistakes you see in the submissions you review?

Soft premise – meaning, there´s simply not enough story to tell, and poor character work. Characters who are two rather than three-dimensional. Writing great characters takes time and experience, there´s no two ways about it. Oh, and typos – people forget to proofread and those simple mistakes can really encumber a script.

Which genre would you like to see more of/less of?

It´s not really a genre, but scripts that are essentially autobiographies with the names changed. We see, very often, young writers who are writing their first or second scripts and they forget to test the premise to make sure that the time they went to Florida and their cousin Bobby got lost in the petting zoo is as entertaining to others as it was to them. It´s not. I would like to see less fantasy/epics because, honestly, with the box office domination of Harry Potter, for a new writer to break in with an expensive spec like that is next to impossible. Writers should write what they love and what fascinates and motivates them but also keep an eye on the market. Judd Apatow has put a new spin on comedy in the past few years so don´t write another Judd Apatow comedy; try to foresee the next wave of comedy in terms of zeitgeist.

The $64,000 question: why is Hollywood turning out so many bad movies (including remakes and sequels)?

Because box office is slipping and television is taking a big bite. Studios are very risk-averse. It´s getting harder and harder to get audiences into the movie theaters and executives are making decisions based on the lowest common denominator. Teen boys are a very lucrative part of the box office and shock/horror and violent movies appeal to them very much. But the slow-grade success of The Bucket List is an example of a movie for a different age range that, while it didn´t do box office gold on its opening or any other weekend, has proven to have legs over time. I think audiences like intelligent, provocative movies and that sooner or later, the decision-makers in Hollywood are going to have to acknowledge our aging population and widen the net.

What´s your best advice to someone who wants to write his/her first screenplay?

Take a class. There are online classes available through UCLA that are quite valuable and many other programs, from weekend workshops at Gotham to 12-week programs at The Writer´s Boot Camp. You learn by doing – buying 12 books on screenwriting is very overwhelming. I can´t recommend taking a class enough – and then another class. And another. Educate yourself and get the peer and academic support you need so that you don´t waste four years writing pointless scripts and feeling totally defeated. Some are real self-learners, sure, but in any case, all aspiring screenwriters should also read as many produced scripts as possible. If there is one faster track to learning, it is reading produced scripts. There you can see, right in front of you, what is working. Beyond that, there are message boards like Done Deal and of course Absolute Write that offer a lot of inspiration and instruction and I like to think The Rouge Wave is a good resource, too.

The most recent writers strike was not the first – nor will it be the last – experienced by the film industry. Do you envision that more screenwriters will start following similar trends provoked by the publishing world (i.e., the emergence/escalation of ebooks/downloads, self-publishing, small presses) and embrace alternative venues that are at less risk to disruptions of income stream, intellectual property rights, and residuals?

Yes. I think a whole new world is dawning in entertainment and that we have only just begun to see its effects. This is the You Tube generation and the success of websites like “Funny or Die” prove that there is a plethora of new venues out there for entertainment and writers. I think it´s an extraordinarily exciting time for writers because a system which was exclusive and entrenched is beginning to crack around the edges.

What are your three favorite movies of all time and why?

Without question, Singin´ In The Rain because I love the music, I´m a huge Gene Kelly fan and I just love the optimism of those MGM musicals in the 1950´s. I think I´ve seen Singin´ over a hundred times!

Another all time favorite is Harold and Maude. The premise is perfect, the character arcs beautifully wrought, the theme is life-affirming and, of course, it has a great soundtrack. The first time I saw it, I was a teenager and I really didn´t know what to make of it but over time, I discovered a new layer with every viewing. Great writing and truly heartfelt material.

More recently, I loved Away From Her and 3:10 to Yuma. Loving the latter surprised me because I don´t think of myself as a fan of westerns, but the writing and performances were spectacular. That scene where Christian Bale whispers fervently to his wife why he has got to take this on brought tears to my eyes. My god, every word was just golden.

Oh and I can´t leave out Ordinary People. That has to be up there in my all time favorites. It doesn´t matter how many times I see it. I love that movie top-to-bottom; performances, writing, direction – everything.

If a movie were made of your life, who would you most like to portray you?

Carrie Fisher.

The Run for the Roses

This week, the Wave-inatrix guest lectured at a UCLA online novel-writing class! How fun! And I did it in my jammies! The students asked fantastic questions about screenwriting and I think we all learned a little something about each other and the art of telling a story. Turns out that we have more in common than one would have thought possible.

If any Wavers have ever taken an online writing course at UCLA, I highly recommend it. It’s a great experience and in this instance, I was beyond honored that the teacher, novelist Caroline Leavitt, recently published by Algonquin, thought this crazy redhead would have something to say to her class. Thank you again, Caroline – what a pleasure. I hope your students recover soon and that nobody sues me. I don’t know what made me say that about Norman Mailer but I totally take it back.

As I post this, there are only 14 hours left in the Short Scene voting here on The Rouge Wave. That means voting ends early tomorrow morning. If you haven’t taken time to vote, please do. Though Andy at Bat seems to be the clear winner – you never know. Let’s nobody break any ankles getting over the finish line. Ohhh that made me so sad. Seabiscuit my ass. Somebody needs to bust that whole industry wide open. Oops, I did it again. Digressed.

Original Ideas

…so I’m on the phone with Go Daddy this morning asking why in the &%$ The Silver Screenwritingwebsite was experiencing grievous technical problems earlier today (problem solved) when the customer service guy said – so, you work with screenplays, huh? Can I ask you a question? Why has there not been one original idea to come out of Hollywood in fifteen years?

Rather than say here what I said to him in reply – the Wave-inatrix was curious – what do you Wavers think about that statement? Is it true? If there’s any truth to it (and there certainly is, to a degree) then why? Why so many remakes and sequels? What would you have said to this guy?

If there’s a delay before your comments are posted it’s because the W is actually – wait for it – taking a mental health day out in the desert. But fear not, we shall discuss this when and if you comment. Commenters always get mental cupcakes, dontcha know.

Hands Across the Sea

Novelist, UCLA instructor and bon vivant Caroline Leavitt gave an unexpected shout-out to the Rouge Wave yesterday and I’d like to give her a shout-out back. C’mon Wavers, a big red wave to Ms. Leavitt! For those of your working on or considering working on a novel, Caroline’s blog is a great resource.

What does the Wave-inatrix say about writing in many different formats? She says DO IT. Don’t let screenwriting atrophy your writing brain. Work it every day, Wavers – poetry, essays, fiction, reviews – be holistic about your writing.

If there are any Rouge Wavers who have a 1st person essay about their experiences screenwriting (500 words, max) that they’d like to share please submit HEREand you might just be on the Rouge Wave.

And don’t forget to check out Caroline’s blog and show her some love – Rouge Wave style.

Magnum Opus Theater in Los Angeles

I just couldn’t resist posting this for those local Wavers who might have the inclination to attend this performance. The Wave-inatrix will definitely be there this Friday evening when the show begins at 11pm. Laughter is the best medicine.

Sacred Fools presents Magnum Opus Theatre — the return of a long-running show with an ardent cult following. The premise is simple: a cast of talented performers produces staged versions of terrible film scripts sent to Hollywood studios by aspiring screenwriters, with hilarious results.

For more information CLICK HERE

Grin of the Day

Wavers, once in awhile I come across something that just makes me grin from ear to ear and know that life is most certainly good – and unpredictable. Check out this link from Improv Everywhere