20 Oct a (mostly)non Certified blog
hey friends,
this week I thought I’d take a moment and talk a little bit about what I’ve been doing that is NOT all about CERTIFIED. because believe it or not, I have been doing some other things.
as you may recall, earlier this year I left my staff editing position at a post facility. since then I’ve been doing freelance editorial for a number of different people and companies. it has been a few years since I was a regular freelancer and it’s taken a bit of time time to remember what it’s like. and what is it like you may ask?
well, it’s a LOT of emailing, meeting up for coffee, talking on the phone, and more emailing. it’s a lot of gently reminding people that you are available for work…and then reminding them that they still need to pay you. these aren’t even factors when you have a steady gig and they occupy a lot of the day.
but when you work from home, you can take a nap after lunch. so there’s that.
so in an effort to keep the lights on at YETIESQUE, delicious noms in my belly, and travel to festivals w/ my film I have worked on: a 3D TV entertainment news show, a brand video, a bat mitzvah video, a documentary trailer, a short film, and a reality TV news video blog. there’s a chance I’ll be working on a music video in the next week or so.
here’s the trailer I edited:
of course, the “day job” is really only 1/2 the picture. the other part is the creative work I’ve been doing. this has mostly been writing. lots and lots of writing.
one of the projects I’ve been spending time on is revising a feature length screenplay called SIDE AFFECTS. it is something that I “finished” near the beginning of the year. I use the “scare quotes” because a screenplay is never really finished… but I did complete it to the point where I was okay with sending it to some friends for feedback. after talking with them I made some revisions and set it aside for a bit.
now the script is a part of my Writers’ Group and I’m getting another set of notes and responses. it’s a good process and I feel like the screenplay has already improved a great deal through the process.
the other writing project is a bit more amorphous. I have been working on a series of treatments for other feature film writing projects. a screenplay is a LOT of work and before I embark on the next one, I’d like to have some guidance as to what I write.
this is where the treatments come in. (a treatment can be anything from a paragraph synopsis like you’d read in a movie review – to a full on prose version of the proposed story.) as I was traveling over the summer I brained stormed about fifty potential ideas. these were as long as a paragraph to as short as a sentence or two.
after I weeded out the obviously really bad ones I took the list to Kimberley. She and I went over the list and selected our favorite dozen or so. with this list of selects I went back to my writing cave. over the next couple of weeks I day dreamed, brainstormed, and let the ideas float around in my subconscious. then I took those and expanded them each to a half page.
I really enjoy the creative process and being able to “dream of potential.” this part of the process doesn’t require a lot of formula or structure, it’s really all about the story, and characters, and ideas. I’ve been free to let my mind wander as I work this ideas out. and it’s been cool to see where the stories have gone. some of the ideas have progressed like I’d have expected, others have gone in entirely new places. these are the “beautiful accidents” that the panelists spoke about in SDCC Comic Con blog. and finding them has a been a lot of fun for me.
the next step will be to take these expanded treatments – narrow the list down further and expand the select-selects even more.
ok, that’s it for now. the emails are starting to pile up again.
and since it’s only a mostly non CERTIFIED blog… here’s a little interview I did at Shriekfest.
enjoy!
-Luke
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