Shiva

Shiva is our latest screenwriting game/exercise. It is turn based, each of the players/authors has a character they hope will last until the finale. Because it’s fun and game-like we are trying to use this technique as a way of creating collaborative scripts. The aim is to create an off the cuff rough-draft script that can be fairly easily turned into a first-draft. We’re finding that it’s difficult to give the script structure but we are working on it.

Our rough draft of Shiva is finished now and we are on the rewrite phase. You can have a look at the rough-draft we came up with but bear in mind that none of it was plotted and that there were 12 active collaborators that’s 12+ active characters and a hefty page count. The dream sequences can get a bit bizarre but they have no bearing on the story so you can pretty much skip them if you like.

The story is basically as follows:

A virulent airborne form of rabies decimates the human population and leaves the animals mad. Some people band together into tribes to try to survive in this strange new world but they are plagued by visions and dreams of a creature both frightening and comforting at the same time. It's calling them to it and they have no choice but to obey the call -- no matter how dangerous the journey may be.

Three tribes start from a different location: New York (New York), Detroit (Michigan) and Ottawa(Canada). They head for a startling climax at Niagara Falls where they meet up with the creature from their dreams: some want to kill it, some want to worship it. Whoever survives the dangers of the journey will write the ending.

We are having a contest to see who can come up with the best rewrite. Anyone is invited to participate. Deadline for the revision is May 15, 2009. Send the revision to me.

And we are planning some new game/exercises in the next couple of months, stay tuned for details.

Back to work

Today was my first day back to work after the long holiday. I'm feeling surprisingly good after the workday - perhaps it was that afternoon cup of coffee. To be honest it made me shaky when I first drank it, now it seems to have mellowed.

The Script Club at Simply Scripts has almost decided to review The Strangers by Bryan Bertino. It should be interesting once we start - which should be in a few weeks. You should drop by and have a gander at what we say about the script. This time we should mostly have watched the film and should have an entirely different spin on our script review. We should cover what has been dropped from the film and what has been added (if anything). I'll provide a link once we start.

The other thing happening over at Simply scripts is the Shiva game. It's a screenwriters game but we are trying to produce a writable script using the technique. I'm trying to inject a bit more story into the game script. I was trying not to have to write too much of the story beforehand, but it looks like that is not working. The next time we do this we will have to include more of a treatment.

That's about it for tonight. Working on a webpage but I won't talk about that in this blog. In the background Star Trek TOS is playing in the background. The episode where Spock goes Amok. Love that word.